


Placation for the Demons

by cadkitten



Series: Demons Within [1]
Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Anal Sex, Angst, Bisexual Male Character, Canon-Typical Violence, Caught, Choking, Dream Sex, Dry Humping, Falling In Love, Fluff, Foot Jobs, Forbidden, Friends With Benefits, Frottage, Gay Character, Glove Kink, Hypersexual, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Love Confessions, M/M, Masturbation, Multi, Murder-Suicide, Mutilation, Mutual Masturbation, Open Relationships, Oral Fixation, Oral Sex, Original Character Death(s), Past Abuse, Phone Sex, Praise Kink, Pseudo-Incest, Rimming, Secrets, Sex Toys, Size Difference, Size Kink, Sleepy Sex, Therapy, Unresolved Sexual Tension, Vomiting, Voyeurism, child trafficking, drugged, genetic sexual attraction
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-05
Updated: 2017-03-05
Packaged: 2018-09-22 05:26:00
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 20
Words: 43,923
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9585395
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cadkitten/pseuds/cadkitten
Summary: There comes a point where each person must find a way to silence the demons in their own minds. For Damian, the time has come where he needs more than his own willpower to hold them at bay.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> For my Writing Challenge: Loving Someone Out of Bounds #2.  
> This story involves one-sided Genetic Sexual Attraction between Bruce and Damian (on Damian's part - I've included the tag b/c there is a voyeuristic session where Damian watches Bruce and no one should be blind-sided by that). If you've never done the research on what this is, it could be worth doing so.  
> Beta Readers: kate1zena  
> Song[s]: "Castle" by Halsey / "Burn" by In This Moment / "24個シリンダー" by Dir en grey

_"Do you have a girlfriend yet?"_

Damian sighed, pushing his phone towards the corner of his desk, choosing instead to gaze up at the drawing he'd hung on the wall above his desk a few days prior. A little red robin nestled in a bedding of green fluff, the shadow of something almost sinister falling over the otherwise bright photo, as if something off-photo were looking down on the tiny robin. No one had ever questioned him when he drew such things, never looked at him oddly or even made references to anything such as his night job, but the symbolism was unmistakable - in his opinion. 

For a moment, he craved to touch the drawing, to reach out and run his fingertips over the lines of the robin, to smear the red even further than he had when creating it. That, too, was a familiar ache. The desire to create and then destroy, to take from whatever he'd given the smallest fracture of hope towards. 

Taking a deep breath, he glanced back at his phone, watching as the screen dimmed, preparing to turn off. Still the words glared back up at him, as if they were as brightly lit as moments before. 

_"Do you have a girlfriend yet?"_

Such overwhelming turmoil in a simple question. Six little words with the power to make him feel everything he tried to avoid thinking about. It wasn't a question born of cruelty or even one he could fault Colin for asking him. He'd never given any outward indication as to what he was interested in, but had made little non-committal sounds each time Colin showed him photos of attractive women. Hell, on Colin's sixteenth birthday, he'd even forged them IDs to make them eighteen and taken them to a little adult shop in Blüdhaven, stood with him as he looked through rows of DVDs slanted towards what Colin was most into. He'd never flinched, never said a word in opposition to the _idea_ that he was into women just like Colin was.

The phone screen turned off and Damian leaned back in his chair, pushed the heels of his hands to his eyes and took in a steadying breath, trying not to shiver over the direction of his thoughts. 

He supposed it was well past time to be at least half honest with someone; to stop torturing himself with the ideas that had been rampant in his head for _years_. Ideas that had never bothered him until a case had plopped down on their laps and fucked his whole head space up along with it. 

Letting his hands drop down to his lap, he stared at the picture absently for a moment, finally reaching out and dragging his thumb along the robin's wing, pulling the red pastel with him, outside the lines of the bird and up into the bright sky. His whole hand followed, pressing and smearing the bird until he was a simple blur on the page, the shadow clearer than the thing it had been protecting. 

He wiped his hand on his jeans and pulled his phone from the desk, unlocking it with a few quick taps and typing out a simple message. A bomb he knew he had to drop and didn't really care to sugarcoat. He'd let Colin believe he was far more interested in women than men for way too long.

_"I'm gay, so no."_

He hit send and tossed the phone on his bed, standing up and pulling his shirt over his head, letting it fall to the floor. His jeans went next and then he pulled on his sweats and tank top to work out in. Pushing a hand back through his hair, he plucked up the phone, finding so many messages in quick succession that he almost wanted to laugh.

_"Oh my god."_

_"Damian! Why'd you let me torture you like that?!"_

_"Oh shit... the shop... what about the shop?"_

_"I... you... we... oh man, I am so sorry. I've just been throwing all of this at you all this time and I... I didn't even know."_

Damian watched the screen light up with a little _..._ telling him Colin was typing again and he rolled his eyes, thumbed the call button and put it against his ear as he moved to the window, leaned against the sill and stared out over the yard. Two rings and Colin answered:

"Dami, I am _so_ sorry. I-"

"Stop." Damian let his lips quirk up in a sort of twistedly amused look. "I did not tell you to garner this reaction." He glanced down, turning his palm up and staring at the remnants of red and black smudged there. "It is only that the question will always have the same answer."

There was a brief bout of sputtering on Colin's end of the line and then, "How the hell are you so composed over this? I've been this huge insensitive _jerk_ all these years and you're acting like it doesn't matter!"

Damian lifted his eyes to view the lawn again, letting his hand fall to his side. "Because it does not." He was silent for a moment and then, "Our past actions should not define who we are in the present." He'd heard those words before, had felt some enormous burden lifted from him when they'd been spoken to him in the wake of the realization that he'd done so much _wrong_ during his time with the League. 

He turned away from the window, making his way across the room, towards his door. "I do not have the time to discuss this right now, but you have done nothing wrong." Another hesitation and he knew his face had the look that Dick tended to describe as "funny" on it as he managed. "I hope you have a pleasant day. Goodbye." He hung up the line and schooled the look from his face, leaving the phone on his bed and heading out of his room.


	2. Chapter 2

Damian squared his shoulders and faced Dick across the mat. He switched his practice sword to his left hand, offered Dick the cocky look he knew set the older man off, and sneered out, "I will even give you my lesser hand, _plebe_."

Dick was across the mat in record time and Damian held back the desire to laugh at how easy it was to goad him into attacking first. He side-stepped, turned and ducked, rolled away from another potential hit, came up and whipped around, practice sword barely touching Dick's neck, leaving him standing there, panting and looking more than a little shocked. "How-"

Damian dropped the sword. "You anger too easily during practice." He twirled the wooden blade and then gently rested the tip against the ground, studying Dick's confused face. "You allow me to worm my way under your skin and you attack rather than counter. You have always been better at deflection than outright attack." He shifted, pulling the sword up and gave Dick a lazy smile. "Come at me."

There was a moment of hesitation and then Dick flung himself into the fight with Damian, coming after him again and again, each time finding himself struck down or hanging at the mercy of Damian's sword. When they stepped apart a final time, Damian turned his back and walked toward the other side of the mat. 

"Now I will come after you." He switched hands with the sword and set himself in proper stance before throwing himself back towards Dick. 

Three attempts, each one blocked, and then he was flat on his ass, Dick's foot on his chest. Their eyes met and Dick tilted his head before reaching to help Damian up, stepping back and nodding toward the other side of the mat. _Again_. Damian smiled as he trailed back to his spot and then turned, flung the sword. It struck hard against one of Dick's practice escrima, the clang of wood on wood loud in the cave. Damian launched himself at Dick and the pair of them went down hard, the air whooshing out of Damian's lungs on impact. He rolled and gave it his all to get the upper hand, gained it for a long enough to straddle Dick, to get his hands around his throat, and then Dick turned the tables.

Dick loomed over Damian, his escrima pushing down against Damian's throat in the threat of the weight he _could_ put on it and Damian felt the faint surge of lust that had always accompanied such a position, squashed it down for what wasn't even remotely the first time, and instead distracted Dick by punching him as he reached down to grab the blade from his boot, keeping it closed but shoving it up under Dick's ribcage, right up against where he'd have nicked his lung. 

Dick let up and looked down at Damian, giving him a little perplexed look. "You keep that in your boot during _practice_?"

"You keep your guard down against other attacks _ever_?"

Dick huffed out a laugh, settling back into a crouch over Damian, giving him a thoughtful look. "You still play dirty after all these years."

"You still play it like you're an angel after all this time." Damian extracted himself from under Dick, turning his back to gather more than just his weapon. He was quickly verging on _aching_ and experience told him this wasn't about to stop. He plucked up the sword and tucked his knife away in his boot. Straightening, he took half a step before Dick's solid weight slammed into him, arms grabbing his wrists and yanking, forcing him to release the sword or cause actual injury. His feet were swept out from under him and they went down in a pile.

Instantly, he was struggling, kicking and kneeing Dick, finally getting one wrist free and twisting around, his hand closing around Dick's neck. The surge of lust the action created left him frozen, staring up into Dick's face as he lay there, dragging breath after breath into his lungs, shock settling in. "You played dirty."

"You basically _asked_ for it."

Damian's eyes flicked down to his own hand, to his darker skin settled against Dick's neck, to how _gorgeous_ of a picture it set up. He knew he was lucky that he was mostly on his side, that Dick wasn't even remotely touching his traitorous body in ways that would betray him. Still, he ached to arch, to turn and get his legs around Dick, to push up against him and-

He huffed out an irritated breath, closing his eyes and letting his head fall back against the mat. His fingers tightened around Dick's neck as he fought back the urge to push up against him, to _whine_ because this wasn't _new_. He wasn't stupid enough to believe that Dick didn't already understand how Damian had been looking at him since he was merely coming into himself. But, he also knew Dick didn't _want_ these things, knew he'd rather jump off of Gotham General without a line than have Damian squirming under him like this.

He let out a snarl and let go of Dick, squirming onto his stomach and drawing one knee up under him to get the necessary leverage to get out from under Dick, and he froze. There was no mistaking what was pressed right up against his hip, no way around the knowledge that Dick Grayson was _hard_ because of this situation. He swallowed thickly, kept himself right where he was, and judged the situation. 

He was on _fire_ he wanted Dick so badly. His temperature was actually elevated and he could feel the steady thrum of his arousal trying to permeate his every action, knew he wanted to push back against Dick, wanted to beg him into giving him an experience he'd been wanting for years, wanted... God, he wanted so much.

Hanging his head, Damian took in a hesitant breath, knew his voice was going to waver no matter what he did, and took the trusting leap into the abyss. "Apparently... that gets to both of us."

The thin little sound Dick let out would have undone Damian if he hadn't already been utterly _damaged_ by the rest of this. He slowly shifted his leg back out from under him, eased himself back down and then squirmed around under Dick until he was on his back, staring up into the most conflicted features he'd ever seen. Spreading his legs, he slid down until he was right where he wanted to be.

Reaching up, he let his hand curl around Dick's neck again, _felt_ him tremble as he gripped harder this time. Dick's hips jerked and Damian's arched to meet them. He moaned at the drag of Dick's cock over his own, at the heavy feeling of Dick's weight settling on him. He pushed up until he was sure he was nearly cutting Dick's air off, narrowed his eyes at him, and then began to rock against him, watching Dick's eyes roll back, watching his jaw fall open and feeling his hips push down harder against Damian's movements. 

Dick gave a choked little sound and Damian dug his fingers in, kept the pressure steady with his palm, not actually doing damage but pushing enough to make Dick _feel_ like he was. Dick's hands grabbed his hips and suddenly Dick was surging against him, quick snaps of his hips, his movements frantic, his pulse skittering against Damian's fingertips, and then Dick was whining and Damian could feel his cock twitching against his own.

Warmth seeped through his sweats and Damian let go of Dick's neck, caught him by the shoulders and hauled him down, crushed their mouths against one another as his own hips jerked against Dick's, his own arousal too much to deny any longer. 

Dick pulled back from the kiss, staring down at Damian, the look on his face one of pure shock. "Dami, I-"

Damian let out a little snarl. "Do _not_." He jerked his hips up against Dick, tipping his head back and groaning as he worked against him. Finally, barely whispered, " _Please_."

Dick shifted, pushing his weight down on Damian, lips ghosting over Damian's jaw and then he was talking, words barely loud enough to be heard even this close. "Damian... I've always known... always seen the way you look at me." His lips again and then, "You're so close." A ghost of a kiss and then his teeth lightly scraping against his chin.

Damian bit back the whimper that wanted out, tamped down on the frustration he was feeling with his body for not having gone over the deep end when Dick had. He desired it so badly it _hurt_ , needed to cum to the point that his muscles were straining and he _knew_ there was no way they'd ever play this off to the cameras like it was anything other than what it was. He tipped his head back even further, bared his neck, and Dick's hand wrapped around it, the feeling of his fingerless leather gloves gripping at him proving his undoing. With a quiet cry, Damian felt blessed relief shoot straight through him and then his cock was twitching against Dick's still-hard bulge, filling his sweats with his own release.

Sinking down against the mat, Damian reached up, held Dick's hand in place by his wrist, sighed quietly as he rolled his hips under him, a smile on his lips. His breath hitched as he finally gave in, stopped moving, opened his eyes to find Dick staring at him in a way he'd never thought he'd actually see. There was lust there, caring that warred with itself just as much the confusion and acceptance did. He slid his hand up Dick's arm and then back down, feeling the fine hairs beneath his palm. "Seems... we get off on the same things."

Dick huffed out something that could have been a laugh, drawing his hand away from Damian's throat and reaching up to absently rub at his own, settling back on the balls of his feet. He opened his mouth a few times, but nothing came out.

Damian rolled to his feet, pausing beside Dick, his hand on his shoulder. "Do not think too much about it. We have denied this for a long time." He squeezed and then let go, forcing himself not to look back, not to think about how things would change or how Dick might not even show up for months after this. He forced his mind away from thoughts of _Bruce_ and how he would react and how much it meant Damian was tamping down on. 

He stepped into the shower area and peeled off his clothing, ditching it in the bin with a little face, making sure it was balled up with the disgusting parts on the inside. Turning on one of the showers, he slid into the cubical and moved under the spray, closing his eyes and tipping his head up, letting it rain down over him, washing away the evidence of what he still wasn't sure if he should regard as shame or pleasure. On one hand, it had been what he wanted and on the other, it was _Dick_ he'd done it with. 

Years of longing had put him here, had forcibly planted him in such a situation with Dick and he honestly felt lucky it hadn't been someone else he'd spent a good quantity of time fantasizing about instead; someone far more complicated. 

He reached for the soap and made a decision to worry about all of this later. Some things would never stop being difficult.


	3. Chapter 3

Damian sat on the edge of Colin's bed, legs tucked up under him as he stared at the computer screen in front of him. His fingers flicked over the controller in his hands, thumbs guiding the camera and his character around the screen, index fingers twitching every now and then as he took aim of his target and fired. 

Beside him, Colin let out an undignified cry and Damian switched to the bumpers instead of the triggers, drawing back toward Colin's character and letting his area-heal drop, hearing Colin give a relieved sigh.

A few seconds and Damian dashed off, guiding his character down the alleyways and then up some stairs onto a rooftop where he had them crouch and waited on the gates to open with the enemies, letting his character pitch a grenade over the ledge and watching it land right between all five of them. Three died instantly, one Damian picked off with one bullet, and the third he launched himself over the edge of the building at, firing as he went down on top of them.

 _Wipe_.

Damian settled back, a shit-eating grin sliding over his lips as he raced to the building they were coming out of, slid around the corner beside the door and waited. This time two grenades took care of the lot of them and he heard a huff of a laugh from Colin. 

"Doing all our work for us?"

"We will win either way." Damian tipped his head to the side, glancing at Colin's sill moving fingers. "You are still doing something?"

"Wandering the map. I learn the map when you play with us. All the places to hide, where all the health power-ups are..." Colin trailed off and Damian watched his tongue poke out and watched him clamp it between his teeth. 

Something ignited inside of him and Damian didn't even pay attention to more than the sounds of the enemies as he laid down a spray of fire and grenades, hearing the word _wipe_ again and then _victory_. He settled his controller down and shoved himself back on the bed. "Take one without me." 

Leaning against the wall, he watched Colin select another character and enter the next game with the little group he usually played with, the empty slot Damian had been filling being taken up by a random person who'd been waiting to play. Some part of Damian's senses were still on the game, still listening to everything going on, but the rest of him was firmly fixated on Colin, on his mannerisms, on how the things he did either slowed or pushed up the burn inside of Damian and _why_.

Finally, Damian tipped his head back, closed his eyes, and waited until he heard the word _victory_ again before he spoke. "Finally did _the deed_ last night." He heard Colin choke and the sounds of button clicks telling him he was leaving the game. 

The bed shifted and Damian remained where he was. "Spill."

Damian lifted one shoulder, let it fall and debated how much to tell Colin, how much to admit to. Colin _knew_ some things, but definitely didn't know others. Damian had confided in him that his fantasies and his dreams had never been about people they should have been about, but not _who_. He'd drawn lines and let Colin finish up the drawings however he wanted to.

Taking in a deep breath, he huffed it back out and then, "Older than me, by quite a bit."

Colin snorted a little. "Sounds like you got that wish then. How old we talkin'?"

Damian shivered, the oldest man he'd ever wanted popping into his mind's eye, a beautiful picture of graying hair at his temples, of brilliant blue eyes, of- he cut himself off with a little squirm and re-focused on Dick. "Twenty nine."

A low whistle came from Colin's lips. "Damn, Dami. Went really far with that one, didn't ya? Eleven years... shit." The bed shifted again and Damian felt his warmth at his side. "Okay, the _better_ details. What'd you do?"

"Mmm..." Damian let his mind wander over it, over Dick's touch, over his desperation and over the hand around his neck. Almost absently, he reached up and ran his hand over his throat, a sly little smirk coming over his lips. "We choked each other."

Colin's hand thumped against his thigh this time. "Holy shit! Right into the kinky stuff!"

Damian dared slit his eyes open, peer at Colin's rapt face before looking towards the window on the wall opposite him. "I did not get to _see_ him."

"Then... how was it se-"

"-tt-," Damian snapped his attention back to Colin. "You have such a narrow view of sex. _Friction_ feels very intense in the right situations."

Colin settled back and Damian could see the confusion slide over his features. "So you didn't _really_ have sex then?"

"We both received pleasure and our culminations from it. _We had sex._ " He made a snap decision, reached out and grasped Colin's throat, holding on tight as he pushed him back against the wall. Leaning in, he let his lips ghost over Colin's ear. "Tell me... if I did the same to you right now, would you consider it satisfying? Would you _get off on it_? If you _cum_ , it is sex of some kind."

Colin's hand went to Damian's wrist in an instant, his hips jerking up involuntarily and Damian grinned against his ear at that reaction. Shifting a little closer to him, he moved until his lips were sliding over Colin's, gently engaging, earning his trust with the kiss even though his hand was still around his neck. His fingers flexed and Colin's hips jerked again. Damian huffed a little amused sound into Colin's mouth before drawing back, settling on his heels, hands beside him now as he regarded his friend. "If I continued, would it be sex?"

Colin swallowed visibly, reaching to shove one hand through his hair before shaking his head. "Shit, Dames... yeah, yeah it would be."

Damian slid off the bed, reached to wipe his lower lip with his thumb as he moved to the window and stood there, hands clasping behind his back. "It was Dick."

He heard the swift intake of breath behind him and then, "Was it everything you wanted?"

Damian cocked his head, moving through the filed away memories in his mind, considering his answer. "I believe so."

Colin whispered, "What was it like? I mean, he's sort of like... your _brother_ , right?"

"I have never looked at him like that. He was my mentor, my friend. He may have regarded _me_ as his brother, but titles are not everything."

"So says the virgin." Colin pushed off the bed and came to stand behind Damian, almost crowding him against the window, the heat of his body radiating enough that Damian could feel it.

Colin's hands came to rest on his waist and then one was sliding up over his abdomen, rucking his shirt up and splaying there. The familiar little fire lit in his belly and he allowed it to happen. They'd played at things like this for years, had touched more intimately than friends usually did, had always kept it on the cusp of what would have broken boundaries between not-so-innocent exploration and outright gratification. 

Damian didn't honestly think that either of them had ever tried to play it off as something it wasn't to one another. Outside of this room, they were innocent, completely devoid of ever having done a thing. But inside this room, Damian had learned to kiss, had gotten aroused to the point he'd ended up in the bathroom just to calm down. Over the years, it had been a steady sort of thing, something neither of them every thought twice about. Even when Colin had gotten his first girlfriend, had been serious about it, they had still shared little moments like this and thought nothing of it.

Some part of Damian knew friends didn't usually engage like this, didn't try to excite one another and then step away like there was some invisible boundary between things they could and could not do. On the flip side, he couldn't imagine a world where he didn't have the comfort of Colin's touch, didn't have the excitement of Colin's pinky teasing along his waistband, never to go further, but always there to entice and excite. 

Leaning back against Colin, Damian reached back, let his ringed fingers tangle in his hair and hold on as Colin's touch ghosted up over his abdomen, curled and then dragged his nails down over his skin. Damian shuddered, his hips arching, the start of his erection starting a fire burning inside of him. He let out a small huff.

Colin chuckled. "Didn't satisfy you completely, did he?"

Damian let out a little snarl. "That was yesterday, you fuck."

"Such a nasty mouth on you when you're alone with me." 

Colin's pinky pushed under the waistband, rested there as Damian's hips rolled against the air, his blood starting to boil. "Stop judging me."

"Then stop making me want you." Colin's lips pressed against Damian's neck, his tongue slicking along his skin. Chills swept through Damian, leaving his cock fully hard, his desire on overdrive in a way it hadn't been in months. He could barely stand the teasing today, could barely stop the urge to pin Colin to the nearest surface and rut him like a wild animal. 

With a groan, he pulled himself free from Colin's grip, taking a few steps back and letting Colin get a good look at him; knew his cheeks were darker with color, knew his pupils were blown and his lips slick with his own saliva. He watched Colin drink him in, watched arousal settle over him in a way that Damian knew meant he'd be doing very much the same thing Damian was when he left the room, _except_ , "Why do we do this in separate rooms?"

Colin's breath sucked in and Damian swore he'd never seen him move so quickly. He was on the bed in an instant, on his knees, hands fumbling with his pants. " _Don't leave_."

He sounded absolutely desperate and Damian couldn't find a single reason to leave in that moment. They _knew_ what the other was doing, always had. Hell, they'd texted in the depths of the night before, told one another what they'd done when they were too horny to sleep properly without it. 

Damian grasped Colin's desk chair, turned it around and settled on it right next to the bed, hands easing down to the tie on his sweat pants, starting to unknot it even as Colin shoved his pants and underwear down, revealing himself.

Licking his lips, Damian reached into his pants, gave himself a few solid strokes before arching his hips, pushing the material down to rest mid-thigh, flexing his cock as he exposed it. 

Colin moaned and immediately moved to fisting his cock, blatantly staring at Damian's length as he stroked and Damian had to admit he liked the boldness. The fact that Colin held no shame in jerking off while staring at him was thrilling and gave him what he needed to take control of this part of his sexuality and move forward with it. 

Wrapping his hand around his own length, he gave himself a few lazy strokes, swiped his thumb over the head, and then began to actually go after himself in earnest, watching how Colin differed in what he did to himself. He watched the buck of Colin's hips, the way he strained into his own touch, the way his other hand was fisted in his shirt, clutching it so hard he could have torn it if he'd done much more. He heard the excitement ramp up in Colin's breathing, in the way the muscles in his arms strained, and in how his abdominal muscles flexed to their maximum as his hips bucked quicker. 

Damian grasped the base of his cock and slid his fingers down to fondle his balls, watching Colin's tighten, redden as he grew so aroused he was going to bust at any moment. Colin let out a choked moan and then his hips were jerking, shoving against his hand, cock pushing into the ring of his fingers as he began to cum. Thick spurts of cum shot out across the bedsheets and - honestly - Damian was impressed by the power of his load. He rocked his own hips, watching the final strands of cum roll down over Colin's fingers, watching him frantically keep jerking despite the whine bubbling up in his throat, as if he were so aroused he couldn't stop himself from moving.

Pushing himself up, Damian let his knees brace against the bed, stroked quicker and quicker until he was flooded with the fire that had been burning in him for a while now. His eyelids closed for a second and he was cumming, for one instant, the flashes of being with Dick, of the older man he'd learned he shouldn't want watching him, of Colin's orgasm rushing through his mind, and then his muscles were working, his release spurting over the bedsheets to mingle with Colin's.

Looking down, he watched the last spurt of it mix with Colin's and then he was being dragged in, Colin's hand in his hair, kissing him hard and deep. 

When he let him go, Damian almost stumbled back against the chair. Colin's grin was cocky and Damian knew he was about to be hit with whatever bomb Colin thought he needed to drop. 

"So was that sex then? Did I _finally_ get to have sex with you?"

Damian snorted, snatching up some tissues and tending to himself before putting his sweats back up around his waist, carefully tying the tie. "Do not be foolish. We did not touch _that way_."

Colin flopped back dramatically on the bed and Damian moved to wipe at the mess they'd left. "So many rules, Dames!"

"I did not make them." Damian tossed the tissues away and moved the chair back to Colin's desk, leaning against it for a moment, staring at the shadowy figure that lay across an empty parking lot in the drawing he'd tacked up here months ago. Colin's image in the series he'd been drawing at the time. For an instant, he considered what a robin would look like in the photo, but he pushed the thought away as quickly as it came. 

Some things, he could never have. Some things, he _had_ to keep at arm's length and Colin was one of those things. 

"I should get going. It is late and-"

"And you have patrol. Heard it a thousand times." The bed creaked and Colin was there, arms around Damian from behind, his face pressed against Damian's neck, the closest thing to a hug they ever shared. Damian pressed his hands to his thighs, kept them still this time, managed to fend off the urge to turn around and bury himself in Colin's hold. 

"Stay safe out there tonight."

Damian let out a slow breath, disengaging himself from Colin's hold, stepping around him and pushing his feet back into his shoes, quickly tying them and then hefting his bag up over his shoulder. "Keep my laptop for now. I will not be seeing Grayson for a while, I suspect." The only other place he used it was at Dick's place, for very similar reasons to here, and he knew Dick would avoid him like the plague for a while after their encounter. Knew it like he knew the thugs over on Eighth would have guns tonight.

There was sadness in Colin's voice when he spoke up. "You think he'll be angry over what happened between you two?"

"No. He will blame himself for corrupting me." Damian turned away before the pain could show on his face. He kept his voice level as he headed to the door. "He will be back to normal in two weeks. I suspect we will never speak of it again after that."

"Why don't you _go_ to him then? Tell him how much he means to you and that you want to be with him and-"

"Because I do not." Damian turned back then, irritation in his gaze. "I do not want to _be_ with Grayson. I wanted what happened, not some lasting _thing_." He spit out the last word, feeling like the idea of being with Dick forever was something vile in his mouth. Turning away, he offered a quiet, "Sex and love are not the same thing."

"I know, but you just always talk about him like... ya know."

"He may not be my brother and I may not think of him that way, but I do care for him. There are more than two types of love in this world." Damian hitched his bag up again, a nervous habit, and took in a deep breath. "Same time next week?"

"Always, Dames..." and there was pain there, pain Damian couldn't have missed but it didn't stop him from leaving as quickly as possible. He didn't stop himself from getting in his car or from blowing past every speed limit sign between Colin's place and the manor like they were mere suggestions. 

But none of it stopped his mind from telling him who it was he _really_ loved, no matter the people he lusted after.


	4. Chapter 4

Damian's back hit the brick wall, his breath leaving him with a whoosh as he slammed hard against it. He ducked as the wall behind him shattered, the brick crumbling with the impact of the giant _thing_ 's fist. He couldn't really call it anything else: all spikes and gooey wetness that dripped everywhere it went, a great gaping maw with what he could only describe as shark's teeth. And fists like lead. He'd already been hit once with its punch and he swore he _felt_ some of his insides displacing because of it. 

He shoved away from the wall and darted under its legs, for once glad for his still-small stature. He hadn't grown like they'd expected him to, hadn't even met his father's height or really even _Tim's_. Granted, he still had time to grow, but he wasn't holding his breath for it to happen. Besides, being short meant being able to do things like he just had, it meant being a smaller more annoying target to the larger things they ended up doing battle with. Like the human trying to swat the gnat, he was harder to catch and that meant everything for survival some nights. 

He turned and slammed the staff he'd taken up using the past few nights into the exact right spot on his enemy, hearing a choke and then watching the spray of blood come from its lips as it went to its knees. _Some_ things from the League of Assassins were more useful than he'd like to admit. Half a twirl and the staff cracked against the creature's skull. It slumped over, unconscious and Damian made quick work of tying it up, plucking a small canister from his belt, holding up the ridges of his suit to the wall, one of them with the _R_ insignia cut out of it and sprayed the red spray paint across it once, leaving his mark.

He'd taken up doing it about two months ago, whenever he went out by himself, knowing his father wouldn't approve, but understanding that this was a _new_ era. While the old generation had been intimidated by a bat's shadow in the darkness, this one was bolder, more harmful in a myriad of ways. But they knew fear as well, if only it was done correctly. Reminders on their street corners, a growing gathering of insignias to tell where he'd taken someone down, how many; the blood spatter below to remind he wasn't _gentle_ about it. 

He'd found gold tags in other places, found evidence of other pickups and he _knew_ who was doing it. Understood that _Abuse_ was out there in the darkness, that he had his back just as much as Damian would have had his if he ever found out Abuse needed him for something. The double-threat on the streets was more than enough to shift the criminals and he honestly had to wonder if - perhaps - he could garner so much of a shift that they ran into one another and fought themselves down to nothingness. Of course, the risk was that they'd feel the threat so hard they'd team up and create something even worse than before. There was no guarantee either way, no indicators to one more than the other, and he knew it was a risk he had to play with at least on a smaller scale. The two neighborhoods he and Abuse patrolled were the test zone, even if they didn't know that. 

He kept his other hits at the end of the night scattered across the city, left his marks there, too. But it wasn't enough to shift anything, wasn't enough to scare, just to rattle someone else up into city lock-up, nothing more.

He hit the auto-call-in on his belt, listened as it dialed GCPD and his best impression of his father's Batman voice came over the line, told them there was a pickup with the coordinates his suit was tracking at. The instant it was done, he cut the connection, cut the GPS signal, and _flew_.

Three blocks and an aborted drug deal later, he came to rest on a rooftop overlooking the park. It was suspiciously quiet tonight and he _knew_ , somewhere out there Jason or Dick had cleaned this part of the city long before he arrived. The riffraff were scared off, three homeless people sleeping peacefully against the statue at the center, all of them with blankets. They weren't _new_ , but they were warm and Damian _knew_ it had been Jason: Jason, who had known how it felt to live off the street. Jason who had done it without his memory for longer than Damian thought he'd ever make it if it had been him out there instead. 

He shifted his crouch and let his gaze meet the alleyways around the park instead of the rooftops, tapped his mask for infrared and picked out a few more homeless people, a stray or two, and tapped it back off, gripping his staff a little harder as he heard the quiet shift of someone on his own rooftop. The very subtle grit of boots and shift of leather that was well-worn. He stood, turning and drawing back from the edge. Stepping around the entry to the stairwell of the building, he found Jason lingering.

"Could have killed you."

"Could have tried." Damian let a small smile slip over his lips as he rested back against the wall, eyes flicking over Jason's form, checking him for any wounds. When he found none, he settled, taking note that Jason still held one of his guns loosely in one hand, the other tucked safely in its holster. He knew better than to mention the park, than to say he'd noticed the blankets, no matter how much he wanted to share how much he admired the things Jason did to improve the world while he was out here. He admired his style and the fact that he saw that _some_ scum needed to be eliminated in order for the rest of the city to thrive. There had been a time or two that he'd slipped Jason some information, done It so far on the sly that Jason might not have even realized it was Damian who'd tipped him off. He'd taken pleasure in watching the results, in seeing the piece of shit strung up in some manner appropriate to whatever they'd done. 

Usually Damian had to keep it different from the cases he and Bruce were working, had to keep it relegated to only things he found out on his own patrols, things he omitted most of the time but sometimes reported on just to throw Bruce off his trail. Though, honestly, he didn't think he was pulling the wool over Bruce's eyes with all of it. If he was somehow, it would only be a matter of time before he wasn't.

Jason shifted, then he held out a thumb drive. Damian reached out, let it fall into his waiting hand and gave it a once over before pocketing it. "What is this?"

"A problem that needs to be taken care of."

Damian cocked his head, giving Jason a curious once-over. "You cannot?"

"If I touch them, they will die. Maybe... this once... they don't deserve it." Jason sounded choked up and Damian's heart thudded in his chest. 

There were a hundred questions. What were they to Jason that they needed to be taken care of but he couldn't touch them? Who could get their claws into him so deeply he knew they needed to be taken out, but couldn't bear to do it with his own two hands? 

"Consider it taken care of." He placed an item on his mental checklist and pushed away from the wall, about to walk past Jason, to get on with his patrol, but Jason's hand on his shoulder stopped him short. 

"There's _talk_." Damian looked up into Jason's face and waited, studying him until he opened up. "You're squeezing them in and they're scared. No one is talking to each other yet though."

Damian somehow didn't pull a face, kept it blank as he gave a short nod. 

"Be careful. Much further south and you'll draw someone's attention you don't want. Push from the other sides. I'll deal with the south-side and no one will suspect." He dropped his hand and flicked his wrist toward Damian's pocket. "Consider it payment that I do not speak a word to _him_."

Damian almost shivered at that voice, wanted to choke back the reaction he nearly had over it. The touch, the way Jason promised him something, all of it. He cracked a smug little look, even if he didn't _feel_ it, and twirled his staff. "Consider us even when we are mutually completed with our tasks."

Three steps and he made a dash for the ledge, making it to the other building and rolling out onto the rooftop, taking off into the darkness, feeling Jason tracking him until he was too far away. Some nights, some _people_ , would always surprise him.


	5. Chapter 5

Damian sat on the edge of the back porch, one gloved hand tucked away in his pocket, the other - free of his glove - outstretched, waiting on Titus to return the ball he'd just thrown. The dog loped across the yard, tail swooshing excitedly as he darted back towards Damian, bright orange ball in his mouth.

He came to a halt right in front of Damian, plunked down on his rear, and carefully leaned over and deposited the ball right in Damian's outstretched hand. Damian settled the ball beside him, dipped his hand into the jar of tiny Milk Bones, extracted a single one and held it out. Titus carefully took the edge of it between his teeth and Damian gave the dog a fond little pat as he crunched his way through the treat. 

Picking the ball back up, he hurled it across the yard, Titus darting after it as Damian got up, scattered a handful of treats on the concrete and recapped the jar, then wiped his hand on his pants, and made his way to the back door, pausing as he watched Titus come back across the yard.

The ball was placed beside Damian, in the little plastic container they kept the ball in and he watched as Titus vacuumed up the treats and trotted up beside him, still crunching on the last few. Damian gave him a good scratch on the head and opened the door, gesturing for Titus to go in, following behind him and carefully putting away the treat container, as well as his jacket, scarf, and lone glove. 

He stopped in the little bathroom beside the door, washing his hands, and then made a beeline through the house towards the study. Pushing one hand through his hair, he allowed himself a little yawn, realizing he probably should have tried to sleep in a little longer this morning. However, it was far too late for regrets on that that front, already up for a few hours and the acceptable time frame for sleeping had long passed. 

Rounding the corner, he heard a quiet grunt from the study, followed by a _suspiciously_ slick sound; a sound he knew all too well. Hesitating, he weighed his options: turn around and walk away and never know what was happening for _sure_ , bust in and see everything no matter what it was, or - as Tim would have phrased it - go full-on creeper status and hedge his way down the hall to see if he could _watch_.

Swallowing thickly, he debated who it could be. Dick probably wasn't around, hadn't been since their little encounter. The probability of it being Steph or Cassandra were laughably low with Tim out on Titans business, and he'd heard Alfred in the kitchen on his way past. There was basically zero probability that it was Jason, which meant it could only be _Bruce_. 

A shudder slammed through him and he almost didn't catch the keening whine that wanted out at the mere idea of it. Heat flooded southward and his feet were moving before he could fathom a single other option in his mind. He kept his breathing slow, steady and _blending_ into the natural sounds of the house.

The door was ajar; not a lot, but just enough to show a sliver of the room. It felt unintentional, as if it had been pushed closed, clicked as if it were shut until the heater turned on and pushed it just a tiny fraction back open. Damian eased himself against the wall, double-checked his surroundings, and then shifted to the door, peering through the tiny gap in the wood. 

He could just barely make out Bruce's form, hunched over his desk. His bare hip and black pants clinging to his thigh, his arm clearly moving in a way that left _little_ to the imagination as to what he was doing. 

Damian's fingers curled at his own thigh, blunt nails digging into his palm as his heart began to race, his blood starting a steady boil of long-denied lust. 

There had been a point, where he'd not seen the shame in looking at his father the way he did, where he'd not _known_ it wasn't right to look at him as someone to desire. Those had been the days where he'd been more at ease with himself, where he'd found comfort in his own hand and the thoughts that peppered his dreams and fantasies. 

It had been a case that led him down the path to knowing there was something _wrong_ with him. A woman and her twenty-something son had been meeting with one another behind the father's back, engaging in certain activities on a fully consensual sort of level, but it had left the father angry, distraught... had pulled him over the edge of sanity and rationality and in the dark of the night, he'd pulled the trigger three times, ended everything. It had taken months to track it all down and it hadn't been anything they _should_ have been on case-wise, but something had pulled at Damian to keep after it. Once he'd found the therapist's files, he'd understood why.

The son had been reunited with the mother at the age of twenty and they'd both been seeing the counselor because of this attraction they were both ashamed of, but couldn't seem to shake off. A pull, a desire to engage sexually with one another, and it had been _shameful_ to them both. There had been names for it, a myriad of terms and pamphlets and educational materials explaining what was going on and why, that it was _common_ amongst those who were reunited when they were older.

Mothers and fathers, sons, daughters, even extended family further out - people who came back into one another's lives, _especially_ those in their sexual primes, tended to find themselves attracted in inexplicable ways to one another. In some cases, therapy helped. In others, it was knowing they had to avoid one another and just _deal_ with the feelings they were burdened with. Yet others simply gave in, understanding the shame and proceeding anyway. _All_ of it was surrounding the concept of not having been in one another's lives in a nurturing sort of way during childhood. 

Damian had walked away from the case, realizing all of the dreams, the fantasies, the way he _liked_ it when Bruce pinned him to the mats wasn't _acceptable_. He knew shame in a sudden and very harsh sort of manner and it had taken him years to accept that it would never stop. He'd never stop looking at his father and seeing a man he wanted to explore, would never find himself pinned to the mats and not want to arch himself against him, and would never stop waking in the middle of the night, desperately needing to bring himself to completion after yet another dream starring the one man he should never want. 

A breathy gasp brought him from his own mind and he sucked his lower lip into his mouth, chewed on it for a moment before releasing it and taking another half step forward, reaching out with two fingers and ever-so-carefully pushing the door just a sliver wider. He crouched, took stalk of his surroundings once more, and then shifted to peer inside the room. His breath caught in his throat and he went instantly from vaguely aroused to fully _aching_ in his jeans. 

Bruce's hand was wrapped firmly around his own cock, providing himself quick little jerks along his length. His free hand was planted on the surface of his desk and Damian could vaguely see his cell phone on the desk, a video playing on the screen, though he couldn't tell what it was of from his angle. Bruce's jaw was set, his teeth gritted in what Damian could only assume was a bid to be _quiet_ with what he was doing. His bicep strained, the thick bulge of muscle pulling at the gray cotton of his t-shirt, shifting it with each stroke he made. 

Damian's tongue darted out over his lips, wetting them as he reached to take a fistful of his pants, hold onto them to prevent his hands from wandering over his body while he was crouched here, no matter how hard he was. 

His father began to stroke faster and Damian let his gaze drop back down to Bruce's cock, watching his foreskin slide over the head and then pull back, revealing the slickened slit again and again until there was a glistening strand of pre-cum stringing down towards the desk. Damian could feel his own length pulse, dampening his briefs around the head of his cock.

His breath caught as Bruce's hips began to buck, his hand going still as he fucked against his fist, rutting quick and hard, his breath growing harsh as he moved. A few more jerks of his hips and then Bruce was _moaning_ , thick pulses of cum landing across the desk.

Damian shoved his hand against his mouth, stifling the groan that wanted out as he forced himself up. He took one final glace at Bruce's hunched form, at the way he was doing his best to catch his breath, gave one violent shiver and turned away. 

A rush of steps and he turned to climb the stairs, intent on taking a few minutes with that oh-so-forbidden image he'd just witnessed. He didn't get further than the fourth step before Dick's voice stopped him. 

"Damian?"

Wincing, he paused, back to Dick, doing his best to regulate every sign about him that screamed desire. He didn't want to have this conversation right now, didn't want to do anything but pleasure himself, locked safely away in his room. But he also know if he walked away now, Dick would likely leave and then they'd be stuck in a hell of a bind with one another and he wanted that even less than he wanted to be caught in such a predicament. 

Turning halfway back, he caught and held Dick's gaze, offering a small little smile. "Been here long?"

Dick shook his head, stuffing his hands in his pockets as he looked away, seemingly trying to look anywhere but at Damian for the moment. "No."

Damian turned and took the necessary steps down onto the landing, carefully using the shadows of the staircase and hallway to hide his _situation_ from Dick's gaze for the moment. It was uncharacteristic of Dick to only give him single words like this, to offer no further information or chatter, and that alone prioritized whatever they needed to get out of their systems over anything else in Damian's mind. "I am assuming you are here to speak with me."

Dick gave a small nod, his hands pushing further into his pockets, and Damian swore he probably could have pushed holes into the bottoms of them if he'd tried hard enough in that moment.

Gesturing towards the dining room, Damian started in that direction, but Dick reached out, grabbed hold of his shirt, clutched it for half a second and then released it like it was on fire. "I- we," he swallowed _loudly_ , "should talk in private."

Taking in a deep breath, Damian turned and headed right back up the stairs. "Fine. Bedroom then."

He could almost hear Dick's distress, despite the fact that he said nothing at all. To his credit, he didn't argue any further, simply traipsed up the stairs after Damian, stepping into the bedroom with him and pushing the door closed behind him, leaning back on the wood, as if he needed to be the one barricading them into the room. "The other day-"

"Was completely mutual." Damian settled himself on his bed, picked up his sketch book and plopped it on his lap, grasping a pencil and flipping it open to start idly drawing, mostly using it as an excuse to hide just how aroused he was from what he'd witnessed mere minutes ago.

"Yeah, but-"

Damian's head snapped up and he knew he held the same commanding visage in that moment that Bruce did in dire times of necessity. "Do not." Damian dropped his pencil on the pad of paper and leaned forward, two accusing fingers jabbing in the air toward Dick. "Do _not_ make this into something where you did everything wrong and I was some innocent person trapped up in it. I was more than willing. Wanted it _maybe_ more than you did, and have no regrets associated with it _unless_ you start in on _this_ road."

Dick stared at Damian for a moment before closing his eyes and resting his head back against the door, heaving out a quiet little sigh. "What does this mean for us, then?"

"The same thing it always has. Nothing has to change other than the knowledge that we both were gratified by the act." Damian picked up his pencil again, going back to hashing out some part of a sketch. He wasn't even sure what he was actually drawing, only that his fingers were moving on auto-pilot through the steady lines and curves.

The bed dipped and Damian let his eyes flicker up for a moment before he concentrated on the paper again. Dick was sitting on the edge of the bed, hands clasped between his thighs, head bowed as he studied his hands like they held all the answers. "Then why do I feel like a complete ass?"

"Because you have a way of making the world revolve around you." Damian glanced up, pencil still sliding over the page. "Not in a negative way. Only that you think you can solve everything or that you are in complete control and any deviation is somehow _your fault_."

Dick was silent for a moment and then, "Are you calling me a narcissist?"

Damian huffed out a strangled little laugh. "Perhaps. Sometimes you know you're _the absolute shit_ and sometimes you believe you are only _worth shit_. However, I believe the definition of narcissism requires some part where you do not care or perceive other people's feelings. That part could not be further from the truth."

Damian looked back down at his drawing and the bed shifted again. Dick's fingertips ghosted over his jawline and then lightly tipped his chin up before he leaned in and pressed the most chaste kiss Damian had ever even considered to _exist_ against his lips. There were a quick succession of others, each one less chaste than the last until Damian was pushing himself up on his knees, pencil and paper falling to the floor as he grasped at Dick's t-shirt, trying to drag him closer. When he couldn't, he moved closer himself, only settling once he was astride Dick's lap, their tongues sliding along one another in an absurdly lewd display that he couldn't bring himself to put any sort of stop to.

They kept it up until Dick's hands found Damian's ass, grasping and squeezing so hard Damian moaned into his mouth. Almost instantly, Dick let go, pulled back from the kiss and stared up at Damian, shock written all over his features. "I wasn't going to..." he trailed off, shaking his head, looking truly stunned. He lifted one hand, slid it back through his hair and tilted his head back, sighing. "Dami... I _care_ about you, but... _fuck_."

Damian settled back, still astride Dick's lap, waiting on him to get his words together, silent only because he knew prodding him wouldn't help. 

"Look, I don't feel like _that_ about you. But I _want_ you and I'm having a hard time reconciling those two things, ya know?"

An amused little smirk settled on Damian's lips. He reached out, cupped Dick's cheek, effectively bringing Dick's gaze back on himself. "I do not feel like _that_ about you either. I do not want anything more than the things we already have and," he glanced down, finding Dick was _definitely_ aroused, "gratification."

Dick let out a half-choked laugh, reaching up to fist his hands in Damian's hair, tugging his head back to bare his throat, leaning in and scraping his teeth over his Adam's apple. "You're _horny_."

"So _crude_." Damian shivered at the action, his hips jerking forward.

In an instant, Dick had him on his back on the mattress, had both hands working Damian's pants open, eager, _excited_. One hand curled around his cock, stroking as Dick's lips crashed against his own once more. 

This time, Damian bucked up against it, moaned into it in complete abandon. His hips rocked and Dick's hand stroked, their teeth clacking at the brutality of the kiss they were sharing. Dick's hand slid down from his hair, settled against his throat, and _pushed_. 

Damian arched up hard from the bed, a sharp cry leaving him, and then he was cumming, everything in him clenching up. The whole world heightened and then he was crashing back down from his high, scrambling to grab Dick's belt, wrench it open, shove his hand into his pants without even fully opening them, and start jacking him off frantically. 

Dick moved to open his pants the rest of the way, baring himself to Damian's fervent work, hips rocking with each movement, his groans freely sliding into Damian's mouth as he surged against his hand again and again. Just as Damian felt Dick seizing up, felt the first hard jerk of his cock, he heard the knock at the door.

Dick shoved his face against Damian's neck, teeth finding his shoulder and sinking down against the flesh as warmth splashed up over Damian's hip, Dick's hips jerking roughly against his hand.

"Give me a minute!" Damian managed, hoping to god his voice didn't sound like he was still stuck in post-orgasmic bliss. 

There was a rumble of someone making an affirming noise and then Bruce's voice - and _god_ why did it have to be him - quietly offering, "If Dick would like to stay for lunch, Alfred has made him a plate."

Dick's fist hit the bed next to Damian's head, his hips jerking hard again, and Damian let go of his cock, grasped his hips and hauled him down, rutting up against him, his own body burning with a renewed fire he knew he couldn't actually _orgasm_ from, but wanted the pleasure from nonetheless. 

Footsteps retreated and Damian managed a strangled, " _Fuck_."

Dick let out a quiet groan, his legs spreading for more leverage, hips jerking quick and hard against Damian's, breath panting hard against his ear. "So. Turned. On."

Damian threw back his head and actually _laughed_ , a certain freedom in knowing he wasn't alone. "Never been caught before," he offered, Dick working frantically against him now, putting him right at the edge. He gasped and then arched and _whined_. "I _want to_."

Dick was off of him in a second, leaning down and taking his cock into his mouth, sucking him in fully and Damian couldn't _believe_ how good it felt. His hips jerked up and Dick choked, and that was _it_. Heat rippled through him and Damian choked out Dick's name as he came for a second time, staring down at Dick as he sputtered around his cock, taking what he could, the rest making a horrible mess all over Damian's cock and pants and Dick's chin and cheeks.

Dick pulled up and Damian struggled to try to sit up, but Dick shook his head, sat back and gave the bed a pointed look. A few spurts of fresh cum were splashed over the comforter and Damian gave Dick a slightly surprised look before he flopped back, closing his eyes and simply doing his best to catch his breath. Finally, "When?"

"When I choked."

The quiet laugh that left Damian wasn't forced in the slightest. He rolled over, grabbed the tissue box by his bedside and sat up, starting to clean himself up, putting the box between them to make it easier. "Figures."

"Says the guy who just got off on my fist around his throat... for the _second_ time."

Damian stood up, hitching up his pants and shooting Dick a fake dirty look and then flashed him a small smile. "You know it."

Dick's quiet chuckle left Damian feeling much better about where they stood with one another. He swiped at the slight stain on his pants, considered if it'd be more obvious for him to change pants or just hope his hoodie covered it completely if he stayed in it most of the day. Settling on the second option, he pulled his hoodie off the back of the chair and tugged it on, glancing at Dick as he placed Damian's sketchbook and pencil on the desk.

He could see the hesitation in him for the briefest moment before Dick was reaching towards him, tugging him into his arms and tipping his chin up, leaning down to plant a warm kiss on his lips. When he spoke, his lips were nearly pressed against Damian's, his eyes still shut as he offered his words. "Tell me if I'm ever stepping into something I shouldn't with you, okay?"

Damian rested his hands on Dick's chest, fingers moving to smooth out the wrinkles in his shirt. "I will." He didn't ask the same of Dick, knew the other would never step outside of the bounds of one of his relationships ever again. One mess, years ago, had been more than enough for him to figure out he wasn't built to be that kind of asshole. Damian stole another small kiss from Dick before taking a step back, turning towards his mirror and ensuring he didn't look like he'd just gotten off twice in such a short span of time. Aside from the way his eyes sparkled and the faint color high in his cheeks that he knew wouldn't leave for hours, he looked like usual. 

One glance at Dick and Damian knew he was used to sneaking around, used to hiding if he'd just gotten lucky or not. He looked nothing outside of usual and somehow that was comforting. 

Damian closed his eyes and for a fleeting second Bruce's form, hunched over the desk, was there. Colin's smile was there. And then Dick's bubbling laugh was a glorious memory in his mind and Damian forced his eyes open, turned to the door, and made a promise to himself. 

One way or another he'd sort himself out and it wouldn't be at the cost of any of these men.


	6. Chapter 6

Damian crouched at the mouth of the alley, one hand securely holding a Birdarang, the other's fingertips barely touching the ground to hold him as still as possible. He barely breathed and - for once - he wasn't wearing his usual Robin colors. Tonight he'd taken his training clothing outside of the cave, added his gauntlets and boots only because he was far more used to them on the street. His face was masked and hidden in the shadow of his hood. 

Beyond the darkness of the alleyway three men stood discussing the business that had been on Jason's thumb drive.

Damian had spent days tracking it further than Jason had, hunting down these three particular men instead of just the one Jason had stopped with. There had been _something_ there that stopped him and Damian understood that sort of reaction to a case. There had been times where cases were too close to something he hadn't quite dealt with, something from his past, and he could always feel the itch to take the life of whoever it was rather than react the way he knew was rational... proper. In this case, he could see it having dredged up some unpleasant memories of the streets for Jason, of the times when he'd done things Damian knew he _wasn't_ supposed to know about just to get by. That sort of mixture of shame and despair could only hurt someone on a case like this.

One of the men cleared their throat and then spit, another lighting up a cigarette, the brief flick of the lighter and the flare of the cherry only a precursor to the stink of tobacco. The third man finally reached into his bag and pulled out an envelope, handing it over to the one who'd spit on the ground. Photos were extracted and Damian heard the pleased groan like it was right next to his ear.

Nausea swept through him at the idea of someone wanting what was on that paper and he pushed himself up, ever so silently, gripping his weapon tighter. He could take them all - all three disgusting men in under thirty seconds - but he knew that wasn't why Jason had put him here. Instead, Damian reached into his hoodie and pressed the beacon that alerted the cops that they needed to move silently on the location he was giving them. He had four members of the force on his side, four people that weren't Bruce's, Dick's, Jason's, Tim's or _anyone's_ but his own. Four people who _he_ trusted more than any of the others to do what was _right_ and he held one way to contact them. The beacon he'd just lit up all of their burner phones with.

He watched money exchange hands and then a key and the man with the photos split off from the group. Damian carefully planted the beacon where he could come back and get it but it wouldn't be found and melted into the darkness to follow the one that was leaving. The _customer_.

Four blocks and the guy slipped down a darkened side-street, Damian following. He stopped at a door Damian could barely see, recessed enough it was hard to make out in the shadows and he heard the key scraping in the rusty lock. The guy stepped inside and Damian waited, seeing a second sliding door at the end of the short hallway and knowing he had to ensure the guy was past that before he went for him. He gave it a ten count and dropped down just in time to catch the door right before it closed. He heard the slide of the other door and retreating footsteps on the other side of the heavy door. He stepped in, slipped paper between the doorknob and the lock and shut the door before proceeding down the hallway. 

He heard crying on the other side, then a pained shriek and he found his hand on his Birdarang in an instant, the door opening soundlessly as he stepped into a room with a single bare bulb swaying in the center. The stink of blood was on the air, but it was a scent Damian was so familiar with he honestly didn't even flinch. The man was crouched over a young man - probably late teens to early twenties as a quick guess in Damian's mind - who had been chained to the floor. A variety of knives and other implements of pain lay off to the side, just out of reach of the victim.

The photos lay scattered around the pair and Damian could hear the excited panting of the man as he crouched over the boy. Damian slipped up behind him, made _sure_ the boy saw him and pressed a finger to his mouth to tell him not to give him away. For one moment, Damian stood there, let the man drag the blade over the boy one more time because it would be enough to _put him away_ and then slammed his fingers into two pressure points. The man dropped like lead and Damian crouched over him, quickly using the extra lengths of rope to tie him up, his voice a whisper. "Are there others?"

The guy let out a little choked sob. "N-not anymore."

Damian gave a single nod and shifted to pick the locks on the guy's legs and one arm. He moved and took one step back and studied him as he pulled out his burner and made the call to the police, dropping his voice to sound like Bruce's, letting them know where the guy was and where this asshole was at and what had been happening, knowing his word was like gold at this point with the cops. 

He knelt in front of the guy and reached out, cupping his cheek gently, studying him. "Tell the cops the truth. They'll put this asshole and whoever else has done this to you away for a good long time. I am leaving one cuff on so you do not do anything you regret. They will be here shortly." He let go, standing, listening to the quiet words of thanks from the guy before he turned and walked out of the room.

He waited on the rooftop across the way, watching as police flooded the joint, as the asshole was dragged out in handcuffs and looking a little worse for the wear than Damian had left him. The young man came out a while later, draped in a blanket, a paramedic on both sides. Damian left then, slipping away into the darkness once more, heading back to pick up his tracker and drop off word with Jason that it was taken care of at the highest of levels. 

If he were honest, it felt good sometimes to do what _didn't_ come naturally. No unnecessary violence and everything was still taken care of. In his book, that was a solid win.


	7. Chapter 7

_Bruce's fingers slid up Damian's spine and Damian couldn't help himself, couldn’t stop the arch of his back or the way he pressed back against his father's body. One gloved hand rested on his hip, one suddenly pressing down on his back, pushing his face against the mattress. Damian let out a moan, gasping as Bruce's hand slid closer and closer to the heavy ache between his legs. The press of leather slipped around his cock and Damian whined, hips bucking as he gasped out, "Father!"_

Damian jerked awake, found his hands fisted in an unfamiliar pillow. The world came back into focus around him and he realized he was at Colin's place, that this was Colin's couch and the scent from the pillow was familiar because it was the cologne he'd bought him a few years ago as a part of his Christmas gift. Memories of Colin spraying it on the couch, insisting it was too good to only be shared by _him_ slipping to the surface as he forced his way through the grogginess of just having woken up.

He felt more than heard Colin's presence behind him, probably seated on the floor, watching him. He'd woken up like that more than once when he'd slipped in so late at night that Colin was already in bed and Damian just didn't feel right helping himself to the other half of Colin's mattress without invitation. He pushed his face against the pillow even further, taking stock of his body, realizing he was right on the edge of orgasm still and gritting his teeth against it.

"You're awake."

Damian took in a deep breath, shifting to rest his cheek on the pillow, reaching one hand up to rub at his eyes. It had to be early still, the restless feeling in his muscles telling him he wasn't on his usual schedule. He grunted to let Colin know he'd heard him, slid his leg up to cover anything he was currently displaying past the remnants of his suit he still had on, thankful he'd at least had the foresight to ditch his cup before falling asleep or this would have been a hell of a lot more painful.

"Are you okay?" This time Colin's voice sounded concerned, sounded like he honestly thought Damian was in a whole host of trouble that he was refusing to talk about. Memories of a situation a few years back with the League came to the surface. The tone matched perfectly. Colin had known then that something was wrong and he was _certain_ this time as well.

Taking stock of what he could have let slip in his sleep, Damian bit back the wince that wanted out, instead sighing and offering, "Just dreams."

Colin shifted closer, his body heat warming Damian's back despite the fact that he wasn't touching him at all. "Do you want to talk about it?"

There was half a second where Damian wanted to tell Colin everything, where he wanted to open up to him and tell him all about how he regularly dreamed of his father doing the most inappropriate things to him, about how he had only learned shame after years of it happening repeatedly. He wanted to show him how hard he was and tell him about how he'd watched his father _cum_ only a week ago. Instead, he closed his eyes and breathed out, "Dick and I had relations again."

For an instant, Damian thought for sure Colin wasn't going to reply to him at all, and then Colin's fingers were lacing with his own and there was a gentle kiss being placed to his knuckles. "You can tell me the truth, you know... anything you need to. I won't ever make any judgments against you."

Shifting, Damian opened his eyes and peered up into Colin's concerned face, saw the lines of worry there and he _knew_ he'd spoken the single word he shouldn't have in his sleep. He turned fully onto his back, letting his leg shift off the couch, foot resting on the floor as he studied Colin. "It is not what you think." 

Colin's eyes darkened and Damian could see the barely reserved fire behind them: anger at its fullest, but to his credit the rest of his face remained passive and his voice even more so. "I'm not sure what to think just yet." A lie, he could see it in Colin's eyes that he was ready to try to skin Bruce alive if he had to.

Damian glanced at the coffee table, to his phone that he'd left charging there. He held out his other hand and Colin let go of him, moved to get it and hand it over. Damian accepted it, unlocked the screen, and typed up a quick search for a website he'd been to dozens of times. It held testimonies, descriptions, definitions, and diagnosis information on exactly what was happening to Damian with regards to Bruce. "It is called GSA. I have had it as long as I can recall having sexual desires. What you need to know is that it _appears_ to be one-sided in my case. Only me. _Not Father_."

Colin watched him for a moment before taking the phone, settling against the couch and starting to read through the pages of information without comment.

Damian watched for a while before he finally pushed himself up, padded off the bathroom. He took the time to relieve his bladder and then proceeded through a quick shower, wrapping Colin's robe around him when he was dried off. A quick scrub of his teeth and his fingers through his hair and he slipped from the bathroom into Colin's bedroom, opening the bottom drawer where he'd somehow accumulated a good amount of his own clothing. One pair of black slacks and a long-sleeved, ribbed shirt later, he stepped out of the bedroom and made his way back to where Colin was still seated. 

Climbing on the couch, he settled cross-legged right beside Colin, peering down at what Colin was looking at. He'd made his way through most of the site, the links all purple instead of bright blue and he was now reading one of the last few testimonials. He finished and held the phone back out toward Damian, picking himself up off the floor and settling on the edge of the coffee table instead, fingers curling over the edge, holding on tighter than was probably necessary. 

"I will tell you anything you want to know."

Colin tilted his head back, examined a spot somewhere on the ceiling for long enough Damian wasn't sure if he was going to ask anything or not. Finally, "He has never done anything to you?"

A cold chill swept through Damian at that, at the idea of someone looking at Bruce like that, thinking he could _ever_ touch his son in the wrong ways. He shook his head. "No. As far as I can tell, he doesn't even have these feelings. It is not... uncommon. For only one person to feel them. The cases there, they're talking about both parties, but there are thousands more where it is only one or the other who feel the attraction. In this case, I believe it is only me."

"Have you ever asked?"

Damian huffed out something that might have been a laugh if it wasn't so dark. "How, exactly, would I ask such a thing? Excuse me, Father, but I have spent all these years wanting you in very inappropriate ways, do you feel the same?" He shook his head. "I will never burden him with this. It is my sin to bear, not his."

"What if he's hiding it, too? I mean, he's not the kind of person who would come out and say it, right?"

"He would have pushed me away if he did. He does not realize my reactions to him and he would not put himself in any situation to provide himself such reactions if he had these feelings." Damian made sure he caught Colin's gaze and held it before breathing out, "Bruce Wayne would kill himself before he would place a hand on his son in any way other than an innocent fashion. This I assure you."

"And Batman?" The question was coupled with a pained look, with something that looked suspiciously like someone who knew too well what it felt like to have unwanted advances in their life. 

"Never." Damian leaned forward, captured Colin's hand, tugging it from the edge of the table and pulling until Colin stood up and came to sit next to Damian on the couch. Leaning against Colin, Damian laced their fingers and cupped Colin's hand between both of his own. "I have done what I can to hide it from him and I would like to keep it that way. It is something I did not have any shame over until I understood I was supposed to. I live with it and I know my way around it without it being a burden in my day-to-day life. Just... sometimes, I cannot stop the desire for it."

Colin was quiet for a while and then, finally, squeezed Damian's hand. "As long as you are okay. It's odd, I won't say it isn't, but I think I sort of understand from a psychological perspective after reading that site."

Damian stared down at their linked fingers, felt the pang in his heart and - not for the first time - realized it was all for a reason. He cared so much for Colin, cared what he thought of him, cared about the mundane things he didn’t care about with anyone else and he knew what it meant. The fact that this whole ordeal - one slip up of a word in his sleep - could have jeopardized everything set his heart to aching. 

If nothing else, he knew he had to get out of there before he tipped his hand on that as well.

Untangling his fingers, he stood, gathering up the pieces of his suit, pulling the small expandable bag from his belt and stuffing the pieces of his costume into it. The ache in his chest grew, constricting until he could barely breathe normally. He swallowed against it as he sat back on the couch, tugged the old ratty tennis shoes over that he tended to leave here and started to stuff his feet into them.

Colin's hand came to rest on his forearm, stopping him, and he just stared at it, realizing there were tears stinging behind his eyes, that the lancing pain in his chest was telling him he was so close to doing the one thing he _never_ did in front of people right in front of Colin. He jerked his arm away and stood, shouldering the bag. "I need to go. There is a meeting." It was only a miracle that kept his voice steady and free of all the pain he was feeling in that moment.

He heard the shift of clothing and then Colin was behind him, one arm looped around his waist, the other hand prying the bag from him. "Don't run from me... if it makes you feel better, I won't look at you while you're upset. Is that what you need from me?"

Damian hung his head, closed his eyes against the dampness at the corners, placed one trembling hand on Colin's arm as he took in a shaky breath. "I need to know you don't think I'm some sick freak you never want to see again."

"Oh _God_." Colin tugged Damian back against his chest and Damian _whined_ before he could stop himself, whined because he could feel that Colin was fighting the change towards becoming Abuse, because he was like a solid wall behind him, and because he'd wanted to be held like this for _years_ and hadn't ever said a word. His fingers dug in against Colin's arms, his stomach trembling in a way that was wholly unlike him and - not for the first time - he hated how quickly he could swap between emotions.

Colin's lips ghosted over his ear. "I don't think you're a sick freak and I can't imagine a world where I wouldn't want to see you again."

Images flashed in Damian's mind and he kept his head down, hid the way he was clenching his teeth against his own lip to hold back how he wanted to _pant_. The quick tumble of imagery provided him with both Bruce and _Abuse_ behind him, with the solid wall of muscle over his far-smaller body. His hips jerked before he could get a grip on himself and he let out a startled rush of air.

"Don't... don't panic, please. _Please_." Colin let go of him in an instant and Damian all but collapsed between the coffee table and the couch, one hand on each as the waves of arousal slammed through him in a way he couldn't quite reconcile. Some part of him knew it was the combination of fear and excitement he hadn't finished off from earlier, knew that it was because he had _feelings_ for Colin and that they were both running on high right now.

Tipping his head back, he gazed at the top of the far wall, right where it met the ceiling. "I am _not_ panicking."

"Then,"he felt Colin's movements, knew he was moving back to give him space, "what is it?"

Damian huffed out an annoyed sound, pulling himself back under control. For someone that controlled everything else, he knew he had a lot of work to do in this department still. "The way you were holding me... the _change_... just need a minute to get myself back under control."

The couch shifted and Damian turned his head enough to see Colin had seated himself, was plucking at the hem of his shirt nervously. "You're... turned on?"

Looking back towards the junction of wall and ceiling, Damian gave a slight nod. "Yes."

"That... uh..." he could heard the nerves in Colin's voice, the lilt that told him he was at least a little excited by that prospect. "That's quite the reaction."

Pushing himself up, Damian smoothed out his shirt and turned around, leaving himself open and vulnerable as he tucked his hands into his pockets and shrugged. "Happens when you feel strongly about someone."

Colin's head jerked up and when their eyes met, Damian could see the confusion written there. He watched Colin flounder for words and fail at finding any before he shrugged a little, his heart sluggishly attempting to beat out of his chest. "Talking about you here, Colin."

Colin pushed himself off the couch and for an instant, Damian wanted to run from whatever was coming. He shut down the feeling and kept himself exactly where he was, forcing himself not to so much as move an inch. A second later, Damian was in Colin's arms, tucked against his chest and their lips were pressed hard against one another. The slide of Colin's tongue brought Damian's hands from his pockets to come up and rest on Colin's hips instead as he kissed him back, kissed him until he was heady with it, until he could feel himself losing whatever fragile control he had over his emotions like this slipping away again.

Their lips parted and Colin's fingers ghosted over his cheek, down over his throat, and then came to a rest over his heart. "Strongly... like _this_ kind of strongly?"

Damian reached up, caught Colin's hand and pressed it hard against his heart, giving him a single nod as affirmation to the question.

A little shiver ripped through him as Colin softened completely, all the confused edges to his demeanor slipping away as he whispered out, " _Oh_." Damian watched the smile slide over his lips and then the blush come up behind it, highlighting the dusting of freckles across his cheeks. "For a while now?" Another nod and Colin's blush deepened further towards red before he barely choked out, "Me too, Dames... me too." 

And _that_ was the single greatest thing Damian had ever heard.


	8. Chapter 8

Panting, Damian stood over the prone form of the man he'd been after for near a week. It wasn't a mutual case, wasn't anything he was working on with Bruce or anyone else. It was his own personal vendetta. He'd been a few seconds too late on a robbery a week earlier, had shown up just after the cashier had gone down, bullet right through her spine. The look of anguish on her face had kept him from tracking the guy down, had sent him to her side to stabilize her and call it in instead. 

Since then, he'd found out she'd never walk again, that she'd be wheelchair bound for the rest of her life. Two seconds earlier and he could have saved her from that fate and that _pissed him off_. Naturally he had used the proximity of the shop to Wayne Tower to funnel some of Bruce's funds into the girl's recovery account, but it wasn't enough to make up for it. It wasn't enough to wipe the look of fear and pain on her face from his mind. 

But this - the beaten man at his feet - _was_. 

Pulling out the spray paint from his belt, he stepped over the guy and held his gauntlet to the wall, leaving his symbol on the wall over the guy's head. Stepping out of the alley, he made the call to the police, eyes catching the fleeting form of what he knew to be Abuse's coat disappearing into the alleyway across the street. 

Ending the call-in, he stared after Abuse for a moment before turning away and hooking a line on the nearest building and heading back towards his own territory for the night. He knew he'd never be questioned for it, that Colin would know and _understand_ why he'd tracked him over here and nearly bashed his skull in. 

Three blocks later, he dropped down in the midst of the girls that worked the corner of Eighth, kept himself in a crouch for a moment before standing. He pulled a small bundle of money from his belt and looked up, finding the youngest girl watching him attentively. She was always the first to take his offered way out of working for the evening whenever she was out here and Damian knew she didn't _want_ to be where she was. A few did, but it was rare that anyone on Eighth were of that ilk. He'd met a few in a brothel once when he'd gone to Paris with his father who had seemed very content with their work, had seemed happy and comfortable and he had wondered then if there wasn't something to the whole concept of legalizing the profession. He still wondered if it wouldn't help in some way.

The girl - Clarissa - moved to his side and he murmured quietly, "How much are you down to go home for the evening?"

"Five hundred and twenty." She looked ashamed at that, shrugged and when he pulled off six hundreds and offered them up, she pushed his hand away. "I couldn't ask that of you. I've never... not that much."

"Do you want to be here?"

"No." She tipped her head back and Damian could see the fading bruise on her cheek under the makeup with the way the light caught her then. Someone had been _rough_ and it was always difficult to tell if it was a John or one of their pimps, frustrating as that was.

He pressed the money into her palm. "I have ways to get the money, do not worry about it." He moved to crouch next to one of the girls who looked incredibly strung out, barely alive if he had to make an assessment. She lifted her head and he could see the smears of her makeup down her cheeks. He didn't recognize her and he knew then, she was the newest. They always drugged them up before letting them free the first week or so, got them nice and addicted and then unleashed them. The drugs were a tighter chain than the actual ones.

He felt one of the other girl's presences beside him and he murmured, "What night is she on?"

"First."

"How much they expect her to make not to dope her up again?"

The girl who'd been beside him moved to sit on the steps next to the girl he was crouched in front of. She pulled one strap of her purple dress back up and then leaned back on her hands, shaking her head. "I don't think they ever expect anything the first few nights. Not sure any of us were ever conscious enough to make it happen."

Damian peeled off two hundreds and carefully tucked them into the girl's pocket. "Tell them someone asked for her and you guys put her in the car. She came back out with that stuffed in her pocket. Let me know if they lay off the drugs faster that way." Standing back up, he held out the remaining few bills. "Anyone else close to going home?"

No one said anything and so Damian moved to the girl he knew had been here longest - Vanessa - and leaned in close. "I'm leaving some in the usual place for your son. Have they suspected anything?" She shook her head and Damian gave a small nod, moving away from the group and taking to the streets instead of the rooftops. A few blocks over, he left the rest of the money about half a block from her apartment under a sizable rock, paid the usual homeless guy that slept there to make sure it was Vanessa or her son that picked it up and that no one else saw, and then slipped away into the night once more. 

Some nights his work was less about violence and more about making things _livable_ for the people of this city. Some nights, he could have sworn he was directly related to Jason.


	9. Chapter 9

Something hit the wall next to Damian's head. Instinctively, he dropped out of the way, rolled out toward the area he thought it had come from and came up, slamming his hand into the guy's chin. He watched his head snap back and then he dropped, the whiplash being too much. Damian kicked the gun away and then whirled on another assailant, barely getting the gun out of his hand, whipping him with it and tossing it with the other one.

Two more men ran at him and he _knew_ a third was at his back. He did what he could to move enough to be harder to hit, to keep himself as much of a hard to hit target as possible, his cape billowing as he rushed the first two. He crashed hard into one, caught the other by the leg and pulled him down. A gunshot went off, but Damian didn't feel any pain, so he figured either he wasn't hit or he was too full of adrenaline to notice at the moment. 

He wrapped his fist around one man's throat, punching and kicking the other as hard as he could. The third was advancing and he knew it, just couldn't give him the time just yet. He slammed the first guy's head back against the ground and ducked under the second to use him as a shield as the third fired again, catching the second guy right in the gut.

Damian scrambled up, shoved the second down hard and used him to push off towards the third. The distance was longer than he wanted it to be and he could see the guy taking aim, _knew_ he was screwed if this guy was a halfway decent shot. 

Blackness landed between them just as the trigger pulled and he heard the familiar _ping_ that let him know the bullet had bounced off armor. He heard the crunch, felt his head swim from the hits he'd taken minutes earlier when this whole hullabaloo had started. For a moment, his stomach swam and then he was being shoved against the wall, Bruce backing him up against it. Another few gunshots and then Bruce was gone. Two men fell from the rooftop above him onto the pavement at his feet. Both looked sincerely worse for the wear. He heard more fighting and then Bruce was there again, dropping down in front of him, cape billowing out around them. 

He blinked his vision back into place and forced himself to take stock of his body, noting a few places that would hurt like the dickens tomorrow, but nothing that seemed overly critical other than how hard he'd taken a few punches to the head. 

Bruce's hand tipped his chin up and there was a pin light in front of his eyes in an instant, testing him, flicking between his eyes. "Minor concussion. Stay where someone can see you tonight." The pin light disappeared and Damian blinked a few times. Something moved behind them and Bruce was shoved flush up against Damian's body. 

The fire inside of him lit before he could even acknowledge what was happening. Still, he ripped a Birdarang from his belt and hurled it, hearing a howl and then a thud, telling him he'd hit his target before Bruce could so much as move. Flicking his gaze back up at his father, he found something burning in his eyes, something that told him he'd been found out. Sincere confusion laced with _something else_ and he looked away, pulling himself from between Bruce and the wall, hedging his way through the men, starting to tie them up.

He got the last one just as Bruce came to his side. He knew the question that was coming before Bruce could so much as open his mouth. 

"Have you been dosed?"

Wincing, Damian kept his head down, tying up the guy in front of him. He stood, wiping his gloves on his pants and then stepped over the guy. "No, I have not." He plucked the Birdarang from the guy they'd had to take down twice, wiped it, and then placed it back on his belt, casting a hard look over his shoulder at his father. "Thank you for stepping in." 

Bruce looked taken aback enough that Damian figured that would outweigh whatever road his mind had been taking about their little incident and he turned away, making his way to his bike as fast as he could. Once on it, he doubled back, found Bruce already gone and left his mark on the walls, a signal that he _wasn't_ going to let this cooperation between organizations take him down, and then he was off into the night.

\--

A few more hours on the street and then Damian found himself standing in Colin's living room. He wasn't home, which wasn't all that unusual so early in the evening, but he did find it somehow disheartening that he wasn't there just yet. 

He ditched his suit and everything else in the corner of the bedroom and hit the shower. He took his time, scrubbing the stink of the street off of him, letting the pain killers ease into his system with the hot water from the faucet. 

Turning off the water, he drew back the curtain and paused, his gaze meeting Abuse's. He gave a little half-smile as he stepped out of the shower and onto the mat, accepting the towel that was held out to him, drying off and then wrapping it around his waist. A half dozen steps brought him to Colin's side and he reached out, fingertips trailing down his side, breath hitching as they caught on his waistband. 

He hesitated for a moment before he whispered, "Don't change just yet," and stepped right up against him, pressing himself against the solid wall of muscle that Colin presented like this. Instantly, he felt _small_ and _fragile_ in comparison and he barely held back the moan he wanted to let out. His fingertips traced along Abuse's waistband, stopping at his belt, slowly moving to unfasten it, looking up to see if he was going to be stopped. When he wasn't, he made quick work of it and then of his fly as well, unbuttoning and unzipping him.

He slid one hand into his pants, sliding along his warm length, feeling how he was already half hard and letting out a gasping little sound at that. Arousal surged through him harder than it had in weeks and he knew exactly what he wanted almost instantly. He worked Colin up into full arousal and then pushed his briefs out of the way, freeing him to the steamy air of the room. 

Turning around, he leaned against the sink, reached to open the left drawer and extracted both the lubricant he knew Colin kept there and the condom package he'd added at some point in the past. He made quick work of ripping into the cardboard and extracting a small foil packet, holding it over his shoulder as he unfastened his towel and let it fall to the floor at his feet. He didn't _ask_ , knew he didn't have to use words if he didn't want to with Colin, and when the packet left his fingertips, he sighed in relief, bent over the sink and clutched as the porcelain as he listened to Colin rustle around behind him.

"Do you... want it while I'm like _this_?"

Damian nodded, dropping his head and arching his back just a bit more, knowing he was begging for it pretty damn loud and clear. He heard the little pant of breath that told him Colin was just as excited and then there was a slick finger at his entrance, pushing in with ease, and he heard the surprised gasp. Letting out a quiet hum, he pushed back toward the finger, trying to encourage another one being added quickly. 

A second slipped in almost as easily and Damian felt more lube come with it. His eyelids fluttered shut as he listened to the way his breath echoed against the porcelain sink, felt the way the remaining droplets of water coursed over his skin, all of it heightening his experience. A prickle of arousal surged through him as Colin brushed over sensitive nerves and then Colin's fingers were gone. There were a few seconds before he felt the weight of Colin at his back, the solid press of Abuse's musculature and weight as he aligned himself. 

His fingers gripped the sink harder and he opened his eyes, looked up at himself in the mirror as Colin pushed into his body. He watched as his own face dissolved into the purest of pleasures, as Abuse's thick length filled him to almost overfull. He rocked back on it, so hard, so quickly that he was _dizzy_ with it. He heard his own voice, _keening_ with his need as Abuse's hands grasped his hips, as he surged forward and filled Damian again and again. 

Leaning back, Damian let his weight rest against Abuse's chest, smiled as Colin let his hands wander over him, one splaying over his abdomen, the other pressing high on his chest, teasing at the idea of it being his _throat_ he was holding with this pressure. Damian watched what he could see in the portions of the mirror that weren't fogged up, took in how _small_ he was in comparison to Abuse, how he was utterly _consumed_ by his larger form. A whine left him as he reached to place his hands over Abuse's own, holding them tightly in place as he helped rock back against the quick piston of his hips. 

His entire body burned with the pleasure he was receiving and when he looked down his body, he was so hard his cock was dripping pre-cum, a strand of it dangling from the tip, sticky and making him _want_ for so much, all at once. He pushed on the hand on his abdomen, guided it down and watched as Abuse's hand engulfed his cock, completely covered it and began to stroke. His hips immediately began to buck, pushing him back onto Colin's cock, driving him forward into his hand, again and again. 

Damian strained against Colin's chest, against the solid wall of muscle that made him _want_ in a way he hadn't entirely been prepared for. He choked and slammed his head back against Abuse's shoulder, his eyes falling closed as he cried out, hips jerking as his orgasm slammed into him. His hands scrabbled for purchase as Colin kept right on jacking him off. A sob left him and then he was pitching forward, grabbing the sink and clinging to it as Colin sped up behind him, shoving in again and again until Damian was full-on _begging_ , words he never thought he'd ever say falling from his lips as he was filled over and over.

A groan came from behind him and Abuse's weight pressed into him, held him tight against the sink and Damian _swore_ he could _feel_ the pulse of his cum filling him. "O-oh God _yes_."

There was a rough pant and then gentler - smaller - hands were holding him, cradling him close. Colin's lips were pressing along his shoulder and up to his neck. Damian sighed as Colin's lips settled against his pulse and remained there. He kept his eyes closed, but found Colin's hand and clutched at it, holding on tight as he started to come down.

Eventually Colin let him up from the sink, pulled away and started stripping out of his clothing as well. He was quiet, but Damian could see the light in his eyes and the pleasure high in his cheeks as he took Damian's hand and guided him towards the bedroom. Even as they slid under the sheets, Damian found himself wondering how on earth he'd ever managed to get this lucky, to have someone like Colin in his life. 

They settled in and Damian allowed himself to settle right next to Colin's side, allowed himself to take his arm and curl up with it clutched against his chest. He pressed a kiss to Colin's knuckles, got a gentle caress of his jaw for his efforts, and closed his eyes with a smile on his lips.


	10. Chapter 10

The clatter of Damian's pen on the desk snapped his head back up from where he'd been dozing off. A quick glance at the clock on his laptop supplied him with the fact that it was nearly six in the morning and he still hadn't slept. With a sigh, he straightened his papers and pushed himself up from the chair. Sometimes he thought he was absolutely _crazy_ to be trying to full-time as Robin and then pull all-nighters like this in some attempt to remain a college student as well. It wasn't like he didn't already have one degree - had earned it at fourteen, one year before Tim, just to spite him - but he was working on yet another after having taken two years off to focus on getting his father's company back on track.

Bruce Wayne was many things, but competent with business, he was not. 

Damian sighed, rubbing his hands over his face and then digging the heels of his palms against his eyes. He stifled a yawn as he made his decision and rounded the plush suede couch, letting himself nearly collapse on it, curling up on his side and telling himself _only a few hours_. He could spare this, have a quick breakfast, and then finish up the report on ancient Greece and the paper on string theory he'd been attempting to simultaneously work on.

His eyelids fluttered closed and just like that, he was out, fading away into the arms of glorious sleep.

_Damian let out a rough little whine, his knees digging into the gravel of the rooftop. His back arched further as his father's slick cock slid between the valley between his cheeks. Once. Twice. The third time, he was finally penetrated, the sharp snap of Bruce's hips making him cry out, his fingers grasping the edge of the wall in front of him tighter._

_Bruce's larger body pushed up behind him, shifted until he was covering him completely, until Damian was drowning in the sensation of so much pressure against his back, of the arms locked tight around his middle, **forceful** in their desire to hold him there. He wanted it, wanted it more than he ever had before. His cock was aching, **sore** from how hard it was, a steady drip of pre-cum streaming from the tip._

_Damian spread his legs further, sank back on his father's cock, rocking his hips frantically, desperate for the friction that was something unusually soft in front of him to compare against the hard wall of muscle and armor that made up **Batman** behind him._

_Bruce's hand slid up to this throat and Damian choked on his next breath, whimpered out, "Father **please**!" Every jarring thrust brought him closer and closer to his end, the ever-increasing pressure against his windpipe leaving him pitching violently toward orgasm. His hands came up and grabbed at Bruce's wrist, held tightly to his gauntlet as he jerked his hips faster, the coil in his belly tightening until his balls were tight up against his body, his cock flexed and harder than he'd ever been, ready to shoot everything he had for his father. _

_The sharp snap of Bruce's hips against him in quick succession left Damian whimpering out, "Father," the mantra steady with the thrusts until Bruce was cumming, until thick pulses of his cum were flooding up inside of Damian and nothing in the world could have held Damian back from his own orgasm._

Damian awoke with a sharp jerk of his hips against the couch, with a quiet cry of, " _Father_ ," that he couldn't have held back if he'd wanted to. His legs spread, his knees digging into the cushions as he strained, trying not to rut against the couch and yet _needing_ to, so close to his edge that he was shaking slightly. 

A quiet hitch of breath sent a shock wave through him and in the next instant, he had his face shoved against the couch, hiding what he could as he lost himself, warm spurts of cum pulsing out into his jeans. He came for what felt like forever, the knowledge that someone _else_ was in the room with him making it all that much better. 

His hips rocked once before he could catch himself and he choked on a pitiful little sound, doing his best to regulate his breathing and make it look like he was still just dreaming instead of fully awake and _cumming in his pants_. 

There were a few more seconds in which he enjoyed the little piece of bliss that was post-orgasm before Bruce's voice cut through the haze like a well-honed knife.

"Damian?"

Damian tucked his head further against the couch as he grimaced, frozen with his ass stuck up in the air, his thighs spread, and his pants full of rapidly cooling cum. He trembled and then slowly eased himself down, turning his head to stare at the back of the couch, knowing he had to look utterly stricken right then. Finally, "Yes, Father?" The waver to his voice, the lack of his usual confidence left him feeling strange, detached, as if his entire being was on some edge he didn't quite grasp.

He heard the shift of Bruce's feet against the carpet, knew the fact that the sound was intentional, to let Damian know where he was, where he was moving, giving him a chance to react. The far end of the couch dipped and Damian knew Bruce had settled himself there, had intentionally sat as far away as possible and yet close enough to give him some measure of fatherly comfort given his currently distraught state. 

They were both silent for long enough Damian wondered if maybe he was supposed to be the one talking here, if his name had been a plea to open up and he'd missed his cue, but then Bruce's voice met his ears, strained, _tired_ , holding the smallest note of upset. "I believe it would be best if we scheduled an appointment for you with Doctor Hammond." 

Damian closed his eyes for a moment, allowed the information to wash over him that his father was recommending a therapist to him. He took in a trembling breath and then pulled himself upright, tucked his knees up against his chest, ignoring the dampness in his pants in favor of dealing with what was right in front of him. He cast a glance at Bruce, found the way he was gazing at the fireplace, the distraught look on his face and the way his hands were tightly clasped between his knees, his form hunched over in a way Damian had never seen.

Tipping his head back, Damian gave a small shake of his head. "I understand why you would want me to go, but I do not feel that I require it." He could _sense_ Bruce's desire to argue with him before he ever got a word out and he held up a hand, brought his gaze back to his father, managed to meet his eyes for half a second when he glanced at him and then dropped his hand to the couch, fingertips running over the suede. 

"I have been dealing with this for a long time and I have done more research than I believe most people would ever bother to do. I can show you the research if-"

"You do not have to." Bruce's voice was quiet, resigned, and Damian watched as his father leaned heavily against the armrest, one hand pushing through his hair. The light caught his features and Damian could see everything in that moment: the fear, the aches and pains, the care, the underlying acceptance that was eating at him in a way he didn't know how to deal with. What he saw - for the first time - was a human being, just as flawed as Damian, just as broken as some of the people they tucked away into Arkham, but filled to the brim with a desire to help.

Bruce's hand settled palm-up on his own thigh, his gaze somewhere on the floor between the fireplace and the couch. "I have done my best to ignore it for years, despite knowing how my presence was affecting you. I changed our training to involve less physical contact the first time I realized it was causing you to react. I have gone to great lengths to ensure our routines after patrol do not overlap in any way that could make you uncomfortable." Bruce's hand was back in his hair again, this time shoving through it in a way that implied some amount of anger that was directed inwards. "The instant I saw how you looked at me after I had one of the ladies over the night before I stopped bringing them back here. I have done everything I could possibly do to keep you from situations you should never have to be put in... and it has not been enough."

Damian shifted then, crossing his legs and tugging his shirt down to cover anything that might make Bruce even more uncomfortable. He leaned forward, hands taking his own ankles and holding on as he allowed the most pained expression to cross over his face. "Father... this is not your _fault_."

Bruce's breath caught, his head tilting back as he gave a small shake of it. "But it is in a way, Damian. I wasn't there for your childhood and when you did come to me, I withheld any amount of fatherly _tenderness_ from you. I sent you away for a _year_ to become a better person before I would so much as accept you into my life. I could have stopped all of this before it started back then. The papers, the research that's been done," his palm pushed over his face before he reached to hold the back of his own neck, radiating so much discomfort that Damian wasn't entirely sure what to do with it. "It all says these things stem from not having had enough contact with the parent in question. Because I did not hug you or nurture you, your body is _confused_ by the intensity of the desires that should have been satisfied in childhood. Contact, hours spent leaning on my shoulder while I read you stories, moments of parental affection. Those things would have changed this for you, would have stopped you from this _torture_."

"I do not consider it to be torture." Damian huffed out a quiet breath. "I know you have this _thing_ about making everything your fault and I understand that it is your burden, from your childhood. You do not need to add mine."

For one moment, Damian hesitated and then he moved, shifting around until he was settled right next to his father, until he caught Bruce's wrist and brought his hand down, lacing their fingers together and resting them against Bruce's knee. "I need you to take me at face-value on this. Please." He caught the slight nod Bruce gave him, felt the discomfort radiating from him, but he forged onward anyway. 

"I did not understand for years that I should even be ashamed of the thoughts I had about you. They did not bother me in the slightest. I understood that our ages disallowed me from telling you about them and that even if you had felt the same, our age difference firmly placed that into an untouchable category. My grasp on what was _wrong_ with the situation was limited only to the fact that an eleven year old boy should probably not desire a man in his thirties. As such, I hid it away from you." He squeezed Bruce's hand, felt the light pressure in return before he continued. 

"It was quite a while before we stumbled on a case that led me to realize what was going on with me and that it was not _normal_. The man who killed both his teenage son and his wife, waited a week and then swallowed a bullet... that case left me feeling as if something were wrong that we were not seeing. It took me _months_ to track it down, to follow the paths to both the son and the mother's therapists and to steal the files." 

Damian fell silent for a moment, studying how their hands were intertwined, how his body wasn't taking this as anything remotely sexual and how gratifying that was. He let his head tilt back to rest against the cushions. "They had independently sought out therapy for the feelings they were having and it was slowly killing them inside. The mother was becoming an alcoholic to kill the desires and the son had attempted to end his life twice throughout therapy. I am not certain what caused it, but somehow they both found out about the other and one session was conducted with both therapists and both patients present. The conclusion was one that has been reached by numerous professionals throughout recorded history of this particular condition. They were to have relations once the son became legal and it would hopefully get it out of their systems.... satiate the need for closeness that they were not getting." Damian lifted his head, changed a glance at Bruce and found his jaw set hard, teeth clenched. "On the son's seventeenth birthday - legal for Blüdhaven - they shared a night together. That went on for a while, the files with the therapists mention at least four more episodes, before the father found them together. The evidence of sexual violation on the part of the mother was actually the son and it took some doing, but I found the condom the father had disposed of that provides solid proof."

Damian shifted Bruce's hand, moved it so he could clasp it between his own as he gazed sightlessly at the wall of books to the left of the fireplace. "I did months' worth of research then, dug up every single reason and every way to deal with what was happening to me, and then I looked for evidence of it in you." He squeezed Bruce's hand tighter. "You cannot understand the weight that was lifted off of me when I came to the conclusion that you were not burdened by this. That statement... it might make you think that I myself am burdened, but that's not it at all. It is only that I understand how your mind works and I know that if you did have those feelings toward me, you would have left my life a long time ago." For an instant, he hesitated, and then, quietly, "I need you in my life and I would never do anything I thought would jeopardize that."

Bruce moved faster than Damian had thought possible, was there, kneeling in front of him, his hands on his cheeks quicker than he could sort out when Bruce had moved. "I will not leave you. I will not abandon you over something you cannot control. I only ask that you make your life easier and go to see Doctor Hammond."

Damian studied his father, examined how calm his body was even with the position his mind could have made anything it wanted to out of, and he managed to dredge up the smallest of hopeful looks. "Would it make you feel better if I did go to see her?"

Bruce gave a slight nod and Damian reached up, cupping his hand over Bruce's against his cheek, leaned into the warmth of it. "I will go if it helps you. My request is that you do things like this more often. I know you pulled away because you wanted to make my life easier, but I _miss_ affection. I will deal with any consequences my body throws at me over the contact." He closed his eyes, unable to admit the hardest part without doing so. He swallowed thickly before he managed, "I have been jealous of Dick and Tim for years. Both of them receive the affection that I wanted from you while I do not. A hand on their shoulder, a hug, you ruffling their hair as if they were still teenagers... and when you stopped allowing me even the physical contact of our training, it only amplified things. I grew to hate Drake for what he received that I did not, grew closer to Dick than to you because he didn't shy away from doing those things for me when you would not." Turning his head, Damian pressed a kiss to Bruce's palm and then sighed against it. "I ask only that you give me what you give the others. If you do that, I will go see Doctor Hammond."

The air between them lay heavy with the weight of Damian's words until, finally, Bruce pushed his hand up through Damian's hair, carded his fingers through it, earning a breathy sigh from Damian's lips. "My reactions may not be what they should be at first... just give me time."

"I will always give you all the time in the world... _son_."

Damian felt his breath hitch, closed his eyes against the instant swell of affection, trembled with the intensity of it, and then forced himself to look at Bruce once again. "Set up the appointment and I will attend."

"Do you want me to go?"

Damian tightened his grip on Bruce's hand, took in a trembling breath, and then shook his head. "No, I believe it would be best if - outwardly - you did not know why I am there. If it ever leaked to the press, you have all the illusion of never knowing a thing."

Bruce's hand moved down to cup Damian's chin, fingers light on his skin. "I worry more about my son than the press. What do _you_ need?"

Damian ran his hand lightly up Bruce's arm before his touch disappeared and Damian let his hand rest on his own lap. "Be here for me like this. Allow me my concern over your well-being in this. That is all I ask of you."

Bruce pushed himself up, hesitated for a moment, and then gave Damian a small nod. "If I am not providing what you need, I will need you to tell me however you see fit."

Cracking a small smile, Damian offered up, "Even if it is by kicking your ass?"

The barest hint of a returned smile met Bruce's lips. "You can try."


	11. Chapter 11

Damian sat, curled up in the overly stuffed couch of Dr. Hammond's office. A little heater to his left was blowing warm air around the room and the gentle sounds of a forest came from a speaker somewhere behind his head. 

Doctor Hammond - a woman in her mid-thirties, vibrant red hair and beautifully artful makeup - sat across from him in a matching plush chair. She had her legs curled up beside her on the couch, somewhat mirroring Damian's attempt at losing himself in the couch. He _knew_ it was intentional, that her mirroring him was built to comfort, but even knowing that didn't stop it from being somewhat of an actual relaxant. 

Tipping his head back, Damian stared up at the ceiling, taking in a breath that was too tight for his liking. Somehow, this was more difficult than it had been with either Bruce or Colin. Telling someone he was only peripherally aware of before today what amounted to his second biggest secret was, honestly, terrifying.

Swallowing against the thickness of his tongue, he looked back down at his own legs, examined the deep gray slacks he'd worn today. One hand came to smooth them over and he forced himself to push down his emotions long enough to get the words out. 

"Are you familiar with GSA?"

Doctor Hammond's voice was gentle when she spoke, softer than Damian's had been. "Yes."

He gave a short nod, reaching up to pinch the bridge of his nose for a moment before dropping his hand back down, finding a point just beyond the heater to focus on, a scuff on the wall. "I have had _those_ feelings for my father since I was eleven." He shifted, grasping the edge of one of the pillows scattered over the sofa, tucking it in his lap and hunching forward over it, finding it easier to breathe once he did. "I came into his life at the age of ten... he did not even know I existed before that. My mother, she hid me away from him." He paused, uncertain what he was waiting on, but feeling like he should hesitate for a moment.

"How do you feel towards her for that?"

Damian shrugged a little. "She had her reasons, I suppose." He smoothed his thumb over the edge of the pillow. "There are things - I am sure you understand - that I am not at liberty to speak about, given _who_ she is."

"I do, though you should think foremost about yourself here, Damian. These sessions, they will not be for anyone else, and if you need me to keep something off the books, I will certainly do so."

Squirming slightly, annoyance flared inside of him that he couldn’t just sit still. The discomfort he usually masked was rampant inside of him and he was helpless to stop it right then. His fingertips dug into the pillow, his next breath shaky. He _knew_ Dr. Hammond was familiar with who they were, what their lives were, but he didn't think she really understood his past, honestly wasn't sure anyone could ever look at the truth of it and not try to commit him. His gaze snapped down to the pillow in his lap, the sting of tears prickling at his eyes. "What sorts of things will end up with me involuntarily inpatient at Arkham?"

"With your line of work... not much. Perhaps, if you are a current threat to yourself or others in a way that cannot be aligned with vigilante justice. Even then, it is a strange line with all of you." She shifted, the light sound of her slacks against the cushion meeting Damian's ears. "Perhaps you should speak with your family members, see if they would like to tell you some of the things that did not result in them ending up anywhere but the seat you are presently residing in."

Damian gave a tight nod, his gaze back to the scuff on the wall. "My mother is not what one would call a _good_ person. I would not fully call her evil either, but her laws are her own. She kept me from Father because she deemed it best for how she wished to shape me as her tool." He closed his eyes, barely managed the next words. "I do not believe that she would have ever wanted this to be the result."

"If you can, talk to me about what _this_ really is."

His fingers smoothed over the pillow, thumbs finding the edges again, sliding along the hem. "I have sexual dreams and fantasies about my father. For years I did not see anything - beyond age - wrong with it. A _case_ changed how I saw myself and now I know it should make me uncomfortable, know it should be this horrible dirty secret." He let the pillow go, folded his hands on top of it instead. "I understand that I should be ashamed, that I should hate myself for it. The truth is, what I hate myself the most for is _not_ hating myself for the fantasies. I know I should feel weak for allowing myself to continue to desire, but instead I feel _powerful_ , though I know I should not. I have gone months in the past where I did not dream or think about him and then I would - intentionally - and it becomes this _gift_."

"Gift?"

Damian could feel his cheeks heat up to a degree, the idea of telling someone his fantasies and what they did to him in actual detail sending a tremor of arousal through him. He bowed his head to try to hide it in the shadows. "The orgasms are more powerful, the feeling afterward more satisfying. I wake up on the verge of orgasm whenever I dream of him, but not so close when I dream of others. The _first_ wet dream I ever had was due to a dream about Father. I can still remember both the dream and the sensation of waking up to my first orgasm."

"During that time, were there any other people involved in your fantasies or was it only your father?"

Damian tipped his head, debating, and then shrugged. "I would try to think of people I was supposed to want. The girls that the others found attractive in magazines, the models on television. It never worked."

He heard a page rustle and he knew what she was looking up, knew his intake form with his sexuality listed was right there on her side table. 

"Did you attempt to think about any other men or were you only focusing on trying to want what everyone else did?"

Damian sucked on his tongue for a moment, releasing it and letting it click lightly against his teeth. "For about a year, I did not really redirect myself. I met Colin right around then and things changed. Sometimes I would think about him instead... or about Suren or even about one of the boys from before I ever left Mother's home. It just has never been as good as it is when I think about Father. I dream about them and I wake up wanting, but not desperate. I can ignore it and sleep, whereas with thoughts of Father, I cannot focus on anything else until completion."

He pushed his hands further against the pillow, trying to quell the burn that foretold arousal in his gut. "I woke up three days ago on the couch in the study to Father standing over me. I came in my pants, right in front of him. Not only because I could not stop it, but because it was _amazing_ to do so. The humiliation of it, the knowledge that he would _know_ what I had done, that he would _finally_ know." Damian tipped his head back and closed his eyes. "I... I _wanted_ him to know I think about him that way. I did not wish to burden him with it, but if it happened that there was no choice in the matter, that I did not have control over the situation, then so be it."

"Why did you wish him to know?" Her voice was gentle, reserved of judgment, and it was something Damian appreciated. 

"I wanted the possibility that if he harbored any feelings for me - tiny as they might be - that he might show me some interest. I just... I wanted him to want me."

She was silent for a moment and then, quietly, "I do not usually cross boundaries like this, but Bruce asked me to do so in his session yesterday."

Damian's eyes snapped up, confusion lacing his gaze. "He... _he_ comes to therapy?"

"He does from time to time. He gave me very specific guidelines on what he wanted me to tell you if you went down certain paths, certain scenarios he thought you might. Would it be okay with you if I share them with you or would you rather me send you to him to have him say it?"

Damian swallowed and then gave a small nod. "Tell me whatever he wanted said."

"He told me how he understand that he messed up with you in a lot of ways, that pushing you away at such a young age was not the correct answer and that the moment he knew what was happening to you, he regrets not trying to get you in here sooner."

"I would not have come...." Damian shuffled himself down in the couch, drawing his legs up and plucking at the pillow again. "I would have been angry if it had happened any other way than it did."

"He wants you to know he has to take ownership of some of this and that he will. That he wants to make things right between you..." she sighed. "What I do not think he understands is how you view this fully. Perhaps, that is a place to start for you both."

"I already told him this is not on him." Damian finally met her gaze, held it for a moment before finding the scuff on the wall again. "I am not here looking for some solution to stop thinking about my father like this. I am here to deal with whatever started it, to deal with some of my past that I deeply regret, and - mostly - to help him feel like I am seeking the help he seems to think I must need." He flicked his gaze back to hers and held it solid. "I am not willing to part with some of the best sexual fantasies in my life simply because they are socially _wrong_. I will not act on them. I will not burden him with them. But, I will not stop them."

He watched something cloud her eyes for a moment and then the light in them as she nodded. "That is your prerogative, Damian. I am not here to tell you what fantasies you should and should not have. I am here to help you through all the rest of it."

Damian shifted, pushing his legs down, tossing the pillow to the other cushion. His arms crossed lightly over his belly and he sighed. "I am aware this is disgusting to other people, brutally aware of how it would look to those who do not know me as immediately as my family and Colin do. Just as I am aware right now that you are trying your hardest to accept me as I am, to allow it to sink in that I will not budge on wanting to think of him like that. It does not make you a bad person or wrong to struggle to understand it; it makes you human. _Why_ would a son want to think of his father sexually? Outwardly, it makes no sense. Whatever path you have taken in your life, it _would_ be some catastrophic event if you ever thought of your own father that way, I am nearly certain. For me... it is not."

He shifted his hands, clasped them between his thighs and held them there, studying them. "For Father, it _is_ the end of the world. He is plainly horrified that I would dream of him like that and he does not even know I do it _on purpose_. If he did, I believe he would attempt to take on the whole of it instead of some portion of it as he has now. I ask this of you - please do not ever slip up and tell him I actively seek those thoughts about him."

"What you say stays in here, Damian. Despite what Bruce asked me to tell you-"

Damian held up his hand. "I am aware that is beyond policy. I am also aware of humanity. Dealing with both ends of this, it may be hard not to offer advice towards one or the other of us regarding how the other is feeling when no one has explicitly said to share something. You are human... we all are. I only ask that one thing not be told to him, under _any_ circumstances or he will wear it as his iron collar, tugging him to his early grave, and I will not allow that to happen to him."

She gave a slight nod that Damian caught out of his peripheral and he glanced at his watch, uncurling himself from the couch and standing. He smoothed his hands over his slacks and picked up his trench coat, shrugging it on. "Our time is nearly over and I believe anything further would delve too deeply for today."

Doctor Hammond stood as well, holding out a small business card that Damian took from her fingers, giving it a glance and then tucking it away. "Call me or email me if you need anything."

"Same time in two weeks?"

"Yes, that appointment is open."

"Excellent." Damian looped his scarf around his neck and opened the door, stepping out into the hallway. He slipped away towards the front entrance, already plucking out his phone, making the call to Alfred that he was ready to be picked up.

He honestly wasn't sure if this was going to help anything at all, but he'd be damned if he wasn't going to _try_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I figure the batboys probably use one therapist despite how it's not a "normally" acceptable practice. Only so many people who they could trust with some things they might need to actually spill about their "night jobs" and all that jazz. (Pretty sure they were having everyone go to the same therapist in newest detective comics, though I cannot recall her name for the life of me. Though that would have been only spoiler, batwoman, clayface, orphan, and bats after Timbo's.... incident... but I'd assume she was who was "on staff" when Tim was there too, so idk.) 
> 
> But yeah, normal land, would not be a good thing. My best guess is it a) prevents what happened with Bruce going "tell him this" and b) prevents the slip-ups Damian's worried about (hence including both of those parts and her seeming discomfort with them).
> 
> Notes included for clarity on why I chose this path. Also... plot, yo!


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bru/Dami becomes... _something_ in a very odd sort of way. Just so we're clear here. Not gonna agree with Bruce's methods, but hey, when do we ever?!

Damian shoved his face into the array of pillows in front of him. His breath hitched a second before a strained whine bubbled up, followed by a single panted word, " _Wilkes!_ "

The little rumble of pleasure Colin let out against Damian's hole shot arousal straight through him, left his hips bucking helplessly, Colin's fingers digging into his ass cheeks trying to hold him still enough to continue pleasuring him. 

Damian jerked one pillow down, stuffing it under his belly, spreading his legs far enough he could just barely rut the tip of his cock against the bed with little cants of his hips. 

Colin's hands jerked him back upright, curling over his hips and holding on tight as he shifted behind him. The slick, blunt head of his cock rubbed against Damian's entrance for a moment before he was pushing in with a groan, Damian's voice rising in chorus with his own.

It was dangerous - this whole thing; mostly because _they_ had never done more than make out while they were in the manor _until now_. But Colin had shown up and after a few hours of Damian attempting to deny what he really wanted to be doing with him, he had given in, ended up languidly sucking Colin off for the better part of half an hour, just letting the stretch of his mouth around Coin's cock drive his mind into oblivion. 

He'd kept Colin on edge so long that his lover had finally tossed him face-first into the pillows and - through some miracle - managed to get him undressed in record time. Now... now they were doing _this_ and Damian couldn't find anything in him that cared about anything else at the moment. 

His cock twitched as Colin's brushed past his prostate, a rush of pre-cum dripping down onto the bed, stringing between his slit and the crisp blue sheets that he was certain he was about to wreck. Another thrust and Damian tucked his chin down, watching the way his own length flexed and twitched, watching how more sticky drops of his desire slid down the strand of the first wave, pooling on the bed.

Colin wasn't going fast at all, was torturing Damian in much the same way Damian had tortured him with half an hour of denying him orgasm, with half an hour of his mouth getting sore around his lover's cock like he didn't have a care in the world beyond keeping him aching for him. Now it was _Damian's_ turn to be tortured, to be so hard he could have spilled in an instant given the chance, but held firmly on the edge instead. 

He sighed in a pleased sort of manner as he shifted, pushing himself up on his hands, rolling his hips to meet the gentle plunge of Colin's length into his body, sinking back on his cock, all the way to the hilt, and then away. He felt the stretch of the tight ring of muscle as Colin pushed in, felt the ease of it as he pulled back out, enjoyed every single instant of knowing his _boyfriend's_ cock so intimately that he could tell the slightest variation in girth as he entered him. 

Damian closed his eyes, held himself still to feel Colin's power when it wasn't mingled with his own, the steady control, the pressure of his fingers, even the twitch of Colin's own cock as he pushed closer to his own limits. He felt Colin flex _hard_ and then he pulled out completely, hunched over Damian and _moaned_. Looking back down under him, Damian could see Colin as well, could see the pearly drop of cum in the tip of the condom that meant he'd nearly lost it, even going so slow. 

Gasping, Damian pushed himself back toward him, his hips rolling to present his ass even more. "Colin, _please_."

"Ah, shit, _Dames_." Colin's hands grasped at his hips again, pulled him back until the tip of his cock was just barely touching his entrance, rubbing there with their breath. "Tell me what it is you want from me."

" _Hard_."

"Hard _what_?"

Damian groaned, his hips rocking in quick little jerks against Colin's length. His own cock strained and he knew he was pulsing out pre-cum again, knew without looking that it was stringing between the sheets and himself again. He trembled, so turned on it was _crazy_ and then managed, "Fuck me _hard_ , Wilkes. It should be _obvious_." The first part, his concession and the second, his fight for his own control while he was handing over so much of it to Colin.

Colin slid into him with a quick jerk of his hips, sinking in until he was tight against Damian's ass, held him there for a moment, then began quick, _forceful_ thrusts, jarring Damian forward enough he had to concede to being on his elbows, grasping the edge of the bed to hold on as he was fucked with everything Colin had. 

One of Colin's hands slid down, caressed over the dip of his hip and across the very lowest part of his abdomen before wrapping around his cock, squeezing and then starting to stroke him with quick frantic jerks. Damian's hips began to move without any forethought and the keening whine he set up wasn't something he could have stopped if he'd had _any_ desire to do so. 

Colin hunched over him, giving a loud groan and then gasping out, "Dames... _Damian_. I'm... ah! Here! Here it is!"

Any other time, Damian would have laughed, would have thought Colin's desire to announce when he was cumming to be something he clearly picked up from too much porn watching, but right then, it was only helping him. 

He clenched around Colin, felt the twitch of his cock as he came, the pulse of it as he filled the latex between them, his hips only giving the faintest of jerks as he finished. 

In an instant, Colin was gone from his body. He heard something rustling and then he was being filled right back up by something _bigger_ than Colin. He cried out as whatever it was brushed over his prostate and instantly he _knew_. Colin had - at some point - found Damian's only toy; one he didn't use often, but when he did it was because he was so hard up he couldn't stand the thought of not being _full_. 

But right here, right now, the toy plunging into him while he was already this sensitive, it was _everything_. It pushed up against his prostate and he felt the instant spurt of cum because of it. Twice more and then Damian shoved his face into the pillows because he was nearly _wailing_ with how good it felt as his orgasm struck him full-on. Panting, he whined and whimpered and bucked against the toy, fucking himself as much as Colin was fucking him as his entire body shook with the force of the orgasm. 

He worked himself back on the toy until he was too sensitive, until he was trying to scramble away from it as much as he was trying to keep riding it. Only then did Colin pull it away, the press of his knuckles against sensitive flesh giving Damian something to ride back on that wasn't pushing _into_ him. He shivered hard, feeling another feeble spurt of cum leave him and he let out a breathy laugh, turning his head to the side and closing his eyes, just letting Colin soothe him with the light repeated pressure of his knuckles. 

Fingertips trailed over the head of his cock, gathering what was necessary to clean him of his cum, and then Colin was gently wiping him of excess lubricant. He heard him cleaning the sheets and the sound of everything going into the trash. He flopped over and watched as Colin used the cleaning wipes Damian had to clean up the toy and place it back in the drawer before turning and scooting in close to Damian, tangling their legs together as he pushed Damian's hair back from his forehead, smiled so sweetly at him that Damian wondered how this was the same man that had just _wrecked_ him. 

They shared the smallest of kisses before Colin rested his head on the pillows as well, his fingertips skimming down Damian's side. "Pretty sure we just traumatized half this house, gorgeous."

Damian snorted, closing his eyes and letting a smile dust over his lips. "Their own fault if they stuck around after the first thing they heard."

"Fair enough." Colin's thumb ghosted over Damian's lower lip, tugging at it for a moment before sliding up over his cheek instead. "Next time I want to watch you when you cum for me... want to see everything."

Damian caught Colin's hand, dragging it to his mouth and pressing his lips against the palm, flicking his tongue out, feeling heat lance through him again and he hid his grin against Coin's flesh. 

"Shit... are you ready to go _again_?!"

Damian licked over his palm once more, shrugging, finally letting it go. "Maybe." He nipped at the pad of one finger as it was pushed past his lips, slid along his teeth and then over his tongue. He let his lips close around it and he sucked eagerly, hands coming up to hold Colin's wrist as he felt the warmth pool at the base of his cock, telling him he was starting to getting hard. He rolled his hips and groaned around Colin's finger, bobbing his head quicker, panting in each breath through his nose.

He could feel his length hardening, the quick sensation of it engorging and stiffening with the rush of hormones. Damian let it happen, let his cock harden fully before he reached down and grasped himself, immediately starting to jerk frantically. He knew how this worked, how the second orgasm had to be if he was going to do it so quickly, and he knew it was now or hours from now, knew it was _fast_ and _rough_ or not at all. 

Grunting with the effort of his quick movements, he gave his best effort on sucking Colin's finger, tongue moving over the digit, head bobbing and lips applying all the right pressure. His hips arched up from the bed and he let out another huff through his nose, listening as Colin breathed out, "Someone put some extra devil in you, didn't they?"

Closing his eyes, Damian let his mind wander, let himself imagine Bruce's cock in his mouth, Colin's in his ass. He imagined the chorus of noises, the rain of beautiful groans and moans and the salty taste of his father's pre-cum spilling on his tongue. He imagined his fingers in his hair, a whisper of _Good boy_ as he took him in until his nose was pressed against his groin, until all he could smell was Bruce's tang, until his only attachment to reality would be Colin's cock anchoring him to the real world. He let his mind flit over Colin's whispered words, telling him he was going to cum soon, telling Damian that his cock was so _very_ hard. He grasped onto words that should have belonged in a dictionary, flitting images of words and their definitions. _Desire. Penis. Erection. Ejaculation._ He let the words arch his hips, let the tremble in his thighs be because he'd taught himself at an early age what these words meant _to him_. One fleeting image of his hand around his own cock as he re-read the encyclopedia entry on copulation and then his mind jerked back to Colin's finger, to the image of it being Bruce's cock and he opened his mouth, felt two fingers push back in and he cried out as his hips jerked harshly, cum spurting up over his belly to the image of Bruce's cum spilling in his mouth, to the imagined rumble of his father's voice telling him he was doing _so well_.

Shaking, he let his head fall back, stroked himself through it until he couldn't stand the touch anymore and then let go, his hips arching and a thin whine coming from him. He was _still_ horny, still worked up but unable to do a single thing more right then. His hips jerked weakly until Colin's hands came to soothe them down against the bed. Gentle hands cleaned up his belly and then Colin's lips were right up against his ear, whispering to him.

"Thinking of him, too?"

Damian gave a single nod and Colin smoothed his hands over his belly, steadying the quiver in it. 

"You're always like this when you are. Like you need more than you're getting even though your body knows you got plenty." His warmth pressed up against Damian's side. "It's that need for affection, isn't it? You need him to tell you he loves you and cares about you and that he thinks you did something wonderful, right?"

Damian tucked his nose against the pillows, nodded weakly, squeezing his eyes shut at the sting of realization that followed the arousal. "Thinking about-" his voice cracked, straining to try to form words past the tightness in his throat, "him saying I was good."

Colin's lips ghosted over his own, teeth catching his lower lip and tugging for a moment. "He does think you're good. If he didn't, you wouldn’t still be his Robin." He kissed him again and then settled on his elbow, peering down at Damian, fingertips gently moving pieces of his hair that were stuck to his face. "I know that's not enough, but maybe... tell him you need to hear those things. Right now... while you're _vulnerable_. Give him a chance to warm your heart. He was in the cave, right?"

Damian let out a little huff. "While I smell of sex and sweat?"

"He has to understand sometimes this is what happens. You have dealt with how things are this entire time... it's his turn now. Put on clothing, go down there just like this, and make that man hug you and praise you." He touched Damian's jaw and gave him a wry little smile. "Or God help me, I will."

Damian shivered, pulling himself upright and stifling a yawn. He hesitated for a moment, studied Colin and then murmured, "What about you?"

"I will be right here on _clean_ sheets when you get back."

With a nod, Damian extracted himself from the bed, padded around, getting his jeans and tugging them on, fastening them up one-handed as he snatched his simple gray shirt from the ground. He tugged it on and opened the door, heading out barefooted, pulling the door closed behind him. Titus was at the foot of the stairs, waiting for him, tail wagging, and Damian patted his head as Titus fell into step with him. 

They headed down into the cave, Damian's feet feeling cold against the floor as he made his way down the stairs. At the bottom, he hesitated, pushed his hand through his sweat-damp hair and took in a steadying breath before quietly making his way towards the workroom where Bruce was currently stowed away. He heard a clunk and a hiss of something as he pushed open the door. 

Titus sat next to the door, knowing he wasn't allowed in here, and Damian padded across the floor, making a beeline for the chair Bruce was in, typing away at the computer terminal. He stopped beside him, hand on the back of the chair, and let him finish what he was writing. When Bruce glanced up at him, Damian shivered, knowing exactly what he needed right then and knowing it was going to be damn awkward at first. "Do we still have an agreement that when I need something from you, I ask for it?"

"Of course." The look on Bruce's face instantly morphed into one of concern.

Damian turned Bruce's chair, stepping in closer and then putting one knee on the chair, settling on the armrest with a portion of his weight - not enough to hurt the chair but enough to keep Bruce right where he needed him. He _wanted_ to be in his lap, wanted to straddle him and _beg_ , but he knew he couldn't do any of that. Reaching for his father's hand, he brought it up, pressed a kiss to his palm and then slid it up across his cheek and into his hair, his eyelids fluttering shut as he let out a shaky breath. "Touch me... _praise me_."

He heard the smallest whisper of, "Oh, _Damian_ ," the words sounding pained with the knowledge of whatever Bruce deducted had to be going on with Damian right then. His hand carded through Damian's hair and nothing was there to stop Damian from letting out a relieved little sound. Both hands came up and pushed through his hair, leaving Damian in a state where he had to regulate his breathing, keep it calm so he wasn't panting from getting what he wanted.

"You have always done so well. You do whatever needs to be done without complaint, without _reserve_. You resist my instruction when I need to know what I'm planning isn't going to work and you follow my every command when it will."

Damian gave a little half-moan at the word command and he ducked his head, a flush coming up in his cheeks, knowing that wasn't the right reaction. He heard the little concerned hitch in Bruce's breath, felt his fingers still for a moment and then continue. 

"Would it help you to tell me what you want, even if you cannot do it?"

Tipping his head back, Damian let the idea of it wash through him. It _would_ help, so very much. But he could never ask Bruce to listen to him confess the things he wanted to do to him, could never place such a heavy weight on Bruce's chest when it wasn't necessary. He shook his head just the slightest, felt Bruce's fingers settle on his shoulder and squeeze.

"You're lying."

"I will not burden you with that no matter if it helps or not. It is one thing to know your own son desires you, it is another to hear the exact specifications of it."

Bruce's fingers tightened again. "This one time, tell me all of it. The desires, what you think the underlying needs really are, how it makes you _feel_. I need to understand, even if only once. Allow whatever it puts on me to be my problem, _this one time_."

Damian squeezed his eyes shut, shivered hard enough it made its way outward, and then forced himself to look down at his own hand, gripping the chair so harshly. "I want to be on your lap. I want your fingers in my mouth and your other hand around my throat." He could feel the excitement building up in his gut and he was thankful his body wouldn't allow him to be hard again just yet, thankful he'd cum that second time with Colin. “I felt like I could never be close to _anyone_ when I was younger, like no one would have allowed me to sit on their knee or lean against them for comfort. I understand the desire for the other parts on two levels. I enjoy both of those things sexually, with various people and I know that it's a lack of control while still holding so much of it. You can be choked and have someone in your mouth and it balances things. They choke too hard, they suffer more than you do. If I think about it like that... maybe it's because I feel like I always have to be in control around you, always have to react a certain way, do a certain thing, hide this or that so you will never know. I want to hand you control, but I'm afraid of giving it all away, afraid I won't get what _I_ need if I do."

Bruce's hands shifted, grasped Damian's wrist and tugged at him. "Come here. Sit how you wish."

"But I-"

"No." Bruce stared up at him in a way that left Damian's gut feeling flayed open and exposed. He took in a breath and felt light-headed, moved without thinking more than that about it, and settled astride Bruce's legs. He shifted until his knees were against the back of the chair, until his rear was right on Bruce's thighs, and he slowly eased forward. Sliding his arms around Bruce, he rested his head on his shoulder and closed his eyes, feeling the frantic beat of his heart slow ever so slightly. 

Bruce's arms cradled him, brought him in closer and Damian clutched at Bruce's shirt, bit back the whine that wanted out about the instant images of straining against Bruce, of rocking his hips quick and rough until he could cum. His cock gave a little throb and then he settled, Bruce's hand stroking over his back. "I pulled away to help you and it only hurt you instead. I should have considered it, should have given you the consideration I have given the others, and I did not. For that, I am sincerely sorry."

"You thought you were helping..."

Bruce's hand was in his hair and Damian let out a soft cry before he could stop it, his hands tightening and he barely stopped the buck of his hips. Fire ignited in his gut and he knew he was about to start getting hard if he wasn't careful. 

"Talk to me."

Damian pushed his nose down against Bruce's neck for a moment, barely managing to drag up the words. "Want to rock against you. I've cum twice in the past half an hour and still want more."

"You are a teenager; it is part of the territory." Bruce's hand settled on Damian's lower back, stilled his tiny squirming he hadn't realized he was doing. "What is it that sparked it? I have done what I did before and it did not."

"Earlier..." Damian fought for the words, gripped Bruce's shirt harder as he forced them up, "with Colin I thought about your hand. In my hair." His muscles quivered as he stopped a jerk of his hips once more. "While I, ah... _hmm_."

"This once... say it all, Damian. No matter how you think it will make me feel. Think only of yourself."

Damian sighed, the sound a breathy release of desire. He shifted back enough that he could flex his hips and not push against Bruce, let out a little sound at the action as it satisfied something inside of him that he'd been needing. "I was thinking of you in my mouth. Of how you'd taste and feel, how full my mouth would be and what you'd _smell_ like. You had your hand in my hair and you kept telling me I was a good boy, that I was doing so good. Colin was taking me." His hips pushed forward again and he let out a little gasp as his cock started to harden. He could feel the slow growth of it as it pushed against his clothing, fully hardening in mere seconds. 

"I want you to call me a good boy."

Bruce let out some sort of strangled noise and then his hand was in Damian's hair, forceful like it hadn't been before, earning a startled cry of pleasure from Damian's lips. "You _are_ a good boy, Damian. Do not ever doubt yourself on that."

Damian trembled and tipped his head back, whispering out, "I'm _hard_ , Father. _For you_." His hand found Bruce's wrist, grasped it harshly as he tried to steady himself, finding it impossible to do so in his current state. He _wanted_ like he never had before, desired so badly he wasn't sure he could pull himself away if Bruce didn't force him to. He let out a loud whine and then almost sobbed out, "I am sorry, Father! I am a failure!"

"No, you are not." Bruce's hands moved to cup his cheeks and Damian's hips jerked again, his cock throbbing in his pants so hard he swore he was about to cum again. "You have been denied things you should not have been. This is only the result, Damian. Not a failure."

Damian's cock strained and he could feel the bead of pre-cum sliding down his shaft, feel every single thing about where he was and wasn't touching Bruce in stark detail. "I want to... I _need_ to. It's _too much_. Oh _God_."

Bruce's hands grasped Damian's hips, pushed him to sit again. "You're stuck on a moment, stuck on this being about _release_ when it is not. _Focus_." Damian whined and Bruce squeezed his hips harder. "What is it that you _really_ need? Not what your body is translating it into."

"I... I _don't know_!" It was almost a wail and Damian could feel a very peculiar brand of panic welling up inside of him over it. He'd assumed... he'd _thought_ that he could find the real need under the urgency of the sexual translation in everything, but he couldn't. He just didn't _see_ it anywhere. All he could see was how hard he was, how much he wanted to cum right up against Bruce's body, how much he wanted to _share_ that with him. He wanted Bruce to see him cum, wanted him to baby him afterward, to hold him close and be tender and gentle with him and- 

He choked out, "I _do_. You're so _harsh_ with me, more than with Drake or Dick. Less than with Jason... but," he forced himself to bypass that, knowing there were probably a million issues Jason had with Bruce over their particular brand of fucked up and that those weren't his concern or his to compare himself to. "I need you to show me I'm your child. Show me I'm not just another _worthless Robin_."

He heard the catch in Bruce's breath, knew the instant his words had impact, and he clutched desperately at Bruce, sliding down closer to him, barely stopping his hips from jerking against him. " _Father_."

Bruce's hands left his hips and Damian was up in an instant, hunched over the desk, trying desperately to tamp down his need. He heard the chair creak and then Bruce's hand was on his side, gently rubbing. "If I leave you alone for a moment to complete your excitement, will it be better to speak afterward?"

Damian gave a small nod and Bruce was gone before he could second-guess himself. The door shut and Damian flung himself back at the chair, crawled into the warmth Bruce had left behind, into the area that still smelled like his cologne and the scent that was distinctly Bruce. He unfastened his pants in record time and shoved his hand in, grasping his cock and stroking fast. He bucked toward the back of the chair, clutching at it as if it were Bruce as he rapidly ramped upward. 

Thighs trembling, he felt everything go tight and he threw back his head and cried out, " _Father_ ," as he came into his fist, his hips working quick and hard at the image of rutting against Bruce until he finished as well. 

He settled back onto his heels, bowed his head and just lived in the fading warmth of what had been Bruce's presence. He let himself come down just enough to get his hand out of his pants, get it cleaned up with a shop towel that he then flung into the wash bin and did up his pants. He didn't move, _wanted_ Bruce to know he'd cum right here, thinking of exactly what it implied he had been, and he raised his voice, questioning, "Father?"

He heard footsteps and then the door opened and Bruce stepped in. His hand was on Damian's back the moment he was close enough. "Stand up so we can sit how we were."

Damian climbed up and Bruce settled back in the chair, opening his arms and Damian all but dove into his embrace, stuffing his face against his shirt, settling heavily against him, the arousal drained from him and the desperate need for something more base than that shining through. His father's arms held him close, cradled him and soothed him until he was on the verge of sleep. 

"Was it this that you needed?"

"Yes." Damian tucked his head in further, shivered once, and then settled. 

"If this helps... then we can transverse the first part if needed to arrive here."

Damian gave a little nod, his hand pressed flat against Bruce's chest, feeling his heartbeat - slow and steady - against his palm. "Did I disgust you?"

"No. You do not disgust me, nor do your actions. I asked for what I needed with it: the explanations of why you were worked up. We can work through this, Damian... I know we can. You and me? We would never let something like this defeat us."

Warmth of another sort blossomed in Damian and he felt the last bits of his worry fade for the time being. He knew once he got himself up, once he returned to Colin upstairs, he'd be better than he had been in a very long while. He knew he'd be full of light and warmth and he could already see the answering light in Colin's eyes, could _feel_ that somehow even this would bring him closer to Colin and he knew he could never have asked for a better person to have come into his life.


	13. Chapter 13

Damian sat curled up on the edge of Dick's sofa. The movie on the screen flickered colors across the otherwise darkened house, created an atmosphere that Damian found comforting. It was their _thing_. Watching movies in the dark with the sound so low they could barely hear it, neither of them talking until it was over.

It'd been years since Dick had actually invited him over. In some small way, Damian had been anxious about it, wondering if Dick was about to lay some huge bomb on him again; but the friendly hug at the door had told him otherwise. The fact that Dick's feet were tangled with his own on the center cushion allowed him a certain element of relief and understanding as to the situation. 

_Dick was trying to make things normal again._

Smirking a little, Damian pushed his foot up Dick's calf, watching as Dick's gaze jerked downward and then back toward the movie. He didn't pull away, though he did dig into the popcorn bag with a bit more gusto. Taking it as a good sign, Damian let his foot roam further up his leg, shifting just enough to slide it up Dick's inner thigh, allowing his toes to tease against his balls until Dick was opening his legs for him, his hips arching. 

The movie brightened for a moment and Damian could see the start of Dick's cock swelling against the front of his sweat pants. Curiosity pushed through him and he fished out his phone, still ever so lightly moving his toes over Dick's sac as he thumbed in his passcode. Three quick clicks and he opened the message thread he had going with Colin, starting to tap out a message.

 _At Dick's. Aware we have not discussed the parameters of our relationship._ He sent it off and lightly moved his toes, watching Grayson tip his head back for a moment, seeing his chest move in a way that implied a rough pant that wanted out and his denial of it freeing itself to the world. 

His phone vibrated once and he glanced back down at it.

 _You always sound like a stodgy old man in texts. For once in your life text like the teenager you are, sheesh~_ A second text came in right after it, Colin clearly up to his usual path of being unable to put all of his thoughts into one text. _Only half kidding... but dude, "parameters" really?! HA I'm gonna assume you mean like... I dunno... if we're keepin' it in our pants around Dickie-bird or not?_

Something in Damian's gut clenched over the last bit and he felt the fire start up as if someone had lit gasoline inside of him. His toes teased a bit more over Grayson's balls and then slid to his inner thigh again, tracing over the muscle there. 

_Funny, Wilkes. Yes, that is what I mean._

The little cloud of dots formed that told him Colin was typing and he tried to focus on the movie for a moment, just letting his foot rest where it was. 

_I really don't give a shit as long as it's Dick or you know who. Would like to know about it after._

Damian stared down at what was essentially permission and then tapped out a quick, _Are you certain? I do not wish to make you feel inadequate. You are not._

Damian was pretty sure he'd never gotten a text back so quickly in his life and it left him pretty sure Colin had prepared it for him while he'd been typing. _I'm sure. I don't feel like that, I just want in on the fun. Give me the deets and I get to have fun thinkin' bout it._

Sliding his foot back up Dick's inner thigh, Damian teased over his balls again, watched the way his hips arched, the outline of his cock so obvious in his pants. Biting his lip, he typed out, _Mute the call when I connect it. Just watch._ Hitting the little icon to let them connect with video, he watched it connect and heard nothing but silence, though he could plainly see Colin's curious gaze. He flipped the camera to the back one and brought it up in a very subtle sort of way, waiting until it focused and the TV lit up enough so that where his foot was resting was obvious. 

Colin gave him a thumb's up and Damian slowly slid his foot up over the bulge of Grayson's cock, his toes pushing against the rigid flesh. Dick's hips jerked up and he tipped his head back, letting out a quiet, " _Christ Almighty_."

Damian's lips quirked as he rubbed his foot lightly over his cock, felt it twitch against him. "Feel good?"

Dick's hips arched and stayed that way, pushing him more fully against Damian's foot. "Been waiting on this since you started playing footsie with me."

Moving around a bit, Damian got himself into a better position to keep rubbing his foot over Dick's length, more than just his toes working on him. He watched Dick's hands grip the couch harder, watched how he wasn't even pretending to remember the movie was on anymore, his head tipped back and his mouth hanging open ever so slightly. 

"Could you cum for me like this, Grayson?"

Glancing back down at his screen, Damian was offered a view of Colin opening his pants and he made a point of looking back up at Dick, finding him watching him, pupils blown, blue eyes dark with lust. "Would rather cum inside you."

Damian shivered, suddenly starkly aware of how hard his own cock was, of just how excited he was. He moved to his knees, trying to find a way to get himself maneuvered and still give Colin a view without giving away that he had him on the phone, but the instant he was close enough, Dick snatched the phone from his hand and Damian's eyes widened, his mouth opening in some amount of protest. 

Dick held up a single finger, turning it so he could see who it was and then hitting mute. He moved the phone around somewhat erratically as he breathed out a quiet, " _Damn_ , Dami... you're full of surprises, aren't you?"

"He's... I-"

Dick shook his head. "I am perfectly aware of who he is and before you can fall too far into defensive-land, I'm cool with it. You're excited, I'm excited," he glanced back at the phone, eyes widening for a moment as he mouthed _holy shit_ , turning it back to show Damian, " _he's_ excited. We're cool."

"I should have-"

"Chill." Dick motioned for Damian. "C'mon, let's give him his show _and_ get us what we want, hmm?"

Standing up the rest of the way, Damian shuffled around, pushed his pajama pants off and slid onto Dick's sweatpant-clad lap and reached down to free him from the confines. Dick angled the camera for him and hit the unmute button and the swap camera button so it was back to the front one. "So tell me... is your friend a loud one?"

Damian glanced up towards the camera, gave a small wave and a sheepish look. "You can unmute it, Colin."

There was a crackle and then the very distinctive sound of Colin jerking off. "Depends on the day. Uh... hey, Dick."

Dick flashed him a quick smile and then turned the camera back around so he could angle the better one down between them, reaching to flip on the lamp beside him, illuminating them. Colin groaned on the other end of the line and Damian reached for the drawer where he'd accidentally stumbled over Grayson's stash of lube and condoms about a year ago when he'd helped him find out where he'd accidentally stashed a particular thumb drive at. Extracting a foil packet and the bottle, he left the bottle on Dick's thigh, opening the condom and discarding the wrapper on the table. 

Grayson groaned as Damian began to roll the condom down over his shaft, so careful to pinch the tip and made sure it fit snugly down at the base of his cock. 

"Feels good when he puts it on, doesn't it?"

"Yeah... he's _good_."

Damian shuddered harder than he'd meant to at that, a huff of breath leaving him as images of his father telling him he was good ghosted through his mind. It wasn't as prominent as it normally was and he considered that a small victory from what had happened a week ago in the cave. Reaching for the lube, he popped it open and poured some over Grayson's cock. 

Squirming around, he managed to get himself over him, one hand steadying his cock, the other holding tight onto Dick's shoulder as he moved forward enough to press his length against his hole. Rubbing against it a bit, he let out a tiny whine before starting to push back on it. He barely got an inch in before he was panting, head thrown back, excitement buzzing in his veins like he hadn't felt all week.

" _So horny_ ," he managed the words, lewd as they were, and he heard both Dick and Colin moan, appreciating that they had the desired response. 

He slowly seated himself on Grayson's cock, taking a few minutes to get it in without any prep. Once he was there, he sighed, letting his eyelids flutter closed as he gave a small rock of his hips.

"Look how hard he is." Dick's fingertips trailed over Damian's cock, barely touching him. His hips jerked as he let out a cry, feeling the wet dribble of pre-cum smearing over Dick's shirt. 

"Looks like he's leaving you a present, too."

"Mmm... his cum is _always_ a gift." 

Damian almost wailed, bit it down at the last second as he started to jerk his hips. Both hands came to hold Dick's shoulders as he rode him for all he was worth, the distinctive sound of their union louder in the room than anything else. He felt another wave of pre-cum spill from his cock and this time Dick's fingertips rubbed over the head of his length, smearing it around. 

"Such a gorgeous boy... always are, just _even more_ when you're like this."

Excitement boiled in Damian's veins as he shoved himself down on Dick, over and over, hips canting, _seeking_ , until he struck gold. His fingers clutched hard and he choked on his own moan, shoving back down hard on Dick's cock as it pushed against his prostate. "I'm... You're... _ah!_ "

Colin's soft chuckle met his ears and Damian shivered again. "Losing his ability to stay all dignified and shit... that's always the best part. Watching _Damian Wayne_ come completely undone on your cock. Like _hot fuckin' damn_."

"No shit." Dick's hand curled around Damian's cock, didn't stroke, but cupped him gently, giving him flesh to rub against instead of just Dick's t-shirt. One finger ghosted back over his balls, teased the tight flesh before drawing back again. "He's about to cum for us." Dick moved the camera closer and Damian's hips jerked faster, a half-wail leaving him as he lifted almost all the way up and slammed back down, striking that precious bundle of nerves harder each time. He felt his cock twitching, felt bliss, but it wasn't his orgasm despite the cum dripping from his length. 

Throwing back his head, he let himself get lost in it, distantly heard phrases from each of them. _So good. Beautiful. Cumming for me. Precious._ And then Colin's voice, "Dames... c'mon, it's okay, let go." Damian hunched over Dick, his movements rapid, his passage clenching around the cock inside him and then he was moaning, a deep rumble of pleasure in his chest as his orgasm finally took hold of him. His balls felt tighter than they ever had before and he could feel himself fluttering around Dick's cock, could feel the frantic snap of Dick's hips as he chased Damian's orgasm, desperate for his own. 

Grayson's fingers wrapped fully around him and stroked - quick and eager - as he shoved up inside of him a half dozen more times before stilling with a _very_ pleased sounding moan. Damian clenched, feeling Dick twitch inside of him and he groaned out, "Colin, _he's cumming_." 

"So - ah - _so am I_!" The sound of Colin jacking off got louder and then he heard his familiar little shout and he _knew_ Colin was shooting his load, probably right across his own bedsheets, because he was careless with his cum like that. It left a little smile on Damian's lips as he settled on Grayson's lap, lightly rocking his hips for the sensation of it, letting the satisfaction brew inside of him. 

He heard the sound of Colin's zipper and then, softly, "Gonna let you two have your evening. Thanks for sharing. See ya tomorrow, Dames?"

Damian turned his head, studied Colin and reached out to touch the screen over his boyfriend's lips, letting his fingers linger there. "Of course."

Colin pressed his fingers to his lips and then to the camera. "Night."

"Goodnight, Colin."

Dick flicked off the call, turned off the screen, and tossed it onto the couch beside them, shifting Damian enough he could retrieve the condom and toss it away, tugging him back to rest against him, not doing up either of their pants just yet. His hands ghosted over Damian's sides and Damian leaned into it, happy to have the attention and the affection. "Boyfriend?"

Damian gave a slight nod, not feeling it overly necessary to tell Dick that he clearly knew he was having sex with other people, given he had clearly just watched. 

"The whole time or-"

"No." Damian's hand slid down over Dick's chest. "Mostly no... it is complicated. Less so now."

Dick hummed. "So wanted to be, but weren't. We got it on and then sometime after that, one of you got the guts to ask... or something like that?"

A huff of a laugh left Damian. "Too curious for your own good, Grayson." He rested his cheek on Dick's shoulder, sighing with pleasure as Dick pushed his hands up the back of his shirt, giving him skin-on-skin contact. "You are mostly correct."

"Not a detective for nothin'."

The faintest thought that if Dick only knew the rest of Damian's thoughts, he'd probably feel very differently about letting him be intimate with him flitted through his mind. He pushed it away, closing his eyes and wondering when he'd decided to worry about what anyone else thought of his fixation with Bruce. Somewhere... sometime... and it was annoying, at best. "Stay right here with me?"

Dick's arms looped around him, his lips pressing a kiss against his hair. "Of course I will. Wouldn't dream of letting you go if you didn't want me to."

Damian hid his smile away in Dick's t-shirt, rubbing his lips against the fabric. Maybe it wasn't entirely orthodox that he was working things out through sex, but he'd be damned if it wasn't working.


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not even going to sugar coat it. This chapter has some _really fucked up shit_. Just so we're clear here. If you have abuse in your past, you may not want to venture into this one.

"Robin _help_. Please, _fuck_ , help me!"

The line crackled and then the dull thump of a gun with a silencer firing filled the line. Silence followed and Damian's heart shot right up into his throat. He stood, gave Bruce a look that must have belayed exactly how much fear had welled up in his heart over the quick plea in his ear from Abuse. 

He turned, running for the edge of the building, hitting the tracker he kept in his belt that kept Abuse's location if he needed him for whatever reason. He hadn't actually known Abuse knew about it, but it wasn't all that surprising, if he were honest. Colin... he had his ways.

Leaping over the edge, he released his grapple and felt it catch, heard the familiar sound of Batman's cape in the wind, just slightly behind him. They both rolled out onto the next building and Bruce veered right. "Car is coming to us. Feed the coordinates to it."

Damian flung himself onto the fire escape, making the three necessary jumps before he simply dropped hard onto the top of a dumpster and did a spring off of it, landing on the ground, crouched. Bruce landed a second behind him and headlights lit up the alleyway a moment later. The Batmobile came to a stop and Damian didn't even debate his decision to get in the passenger seat. Bruce knew the car more intimately than Damian, clearly sensed his son's urgency, and he wasn't about to let any sense of narcissism jeopardize Colin's life. 

He slid the tracker into the computer slot and as soon as Bruce's door was shut, the car took off, Bruce taking a moment to familiarize himself with where they were headed and then taking over. "Which one of them is it?"

Given any other circumstance, Damian would have, perhaps, laughed finding out that Bruce knew he kept tabs on most everyone they knew, tracked them all in some sort of obsessive need to be there for everyone who had ever been there for him. He leaned forward, taking the opportunity to restock everything in his belt. "Abuse. He called in for my help, there was a gunshot, and then silence."

Damian could sense Bruce's wince despite not seeing it, knew his father was making the very same jump his own mind was desperately trying to avoid making. 

They turned a corner at twice the speed Bruce would normally have allowed, hit the straight away across the bridge into Blüdhaven going faster than Damian had _ever_ seen Bruce go. A block in and he made a sharp right, coming to a stop and both doors popped open. They spilled out, the doors closing behind them, the car arming itself as they took flight, twin grapples pulling them up towards the signal, the fifteenth story of an apartment building. 

In perfect tandem they landed, parted to create two targets, and then knocked in both windows without reserve. Bruce tossed in a smoke bomb and Damian went for zero cover, zigzagging across the floor of what was the combined kitchen and dining room area. Two gunshots fired, both with silencers, from the sound they were the same caliber and gun as the one he'd heard on the comm line.

He came around the corner, caught someone across the throat, heard the clatter of a gun, kicked it away out of instinct. The quickest of assessments told him Bruce was in the room, three targets on the ground, four more around the huge open area of the living room and second floor landing that overlooked it. He flung himself at the stairs, took them two at a time, diving and rolling across the floor, catching one by the leg and pulling him down. An automatic machine gun went off and Damian felt the bullets impact the man who had come down right against him. 

He was up and running in an instant, hearing Bruce take down the aggressors downstairs, hearing a single gunshot and then the sound of a child sobbing after the click of a door. Scowling, Damian knew _exactly_ what was going on here in an instant. Colin had said he was tracking down a ring that brought children in from Canada, raised them in what amounted to Hell, and then stuck them in underground sex clubs. This had to be the center of the ring in Blüdhaven. 

Someone cursed to his right and he struck out, catching them in the side of the head, feeling them drop from the blow to the head. Spinning around, he dashed right for two more people he hadn't seen before. One Batarang, right through the shoulder of one of the men. He jumped and brought his foot down right into the chest of the woman pointing a shotgun right at him. It went off as she pitched backwards and Damian felt the bitter sting of being grazed by a gunshot. Adrenaline quickly overcame it and he slammed his hand against her nose, heard her scream as he spun her to the floor and crouched, already yanking her hands back to tie her up. 

Colin lay a few feet behind the woman, his shirt bloody, clearly barely conscious as he stared hazily at Damian, no longer in his Abuse form.

"Are there more?"

Colin shook his head slowly, holding out one hand toward Damian.

Standing up, Damian moved to the next of the criminals, kneeling to tie them up as well, his eyes flicking between the room around him and Colin, watching the waver of his hand until he heard Bruce's heavy bootsteps behind him, intentional in their loudness. 

"I've got this, Robin. Check on him."

Damian was up like a shot, rushing across the room to Colin and slamming to his knees in front of him. Rucking up his shirt, he found no wounds. Giving him a perplexed look, he watched Colin lift his hand, holding out something to him in his closed fist. Damian help open his gloved hand, watching the needle fall into it, the actual tip snapped off, leaving only the plastic bit behind.

"Not.... not _sure_." Colin's breath caught and Damian let out a snarl, ripping out the portable analysis kit from his belt, yanking the plunger out and tipping it over, letting the single remaining drop plop down on the strip inside. He closed it and hit the small Robin symbol on top, setting it on Colin's thigh as he cupped his cheeks, studied him, moved his head side to side, felt down over his arms and across his legs, looking for any evidence that anything else hurt.

Once he was satisfied Colin was okay in that regard, he picked up the kit, turning it over and frowning at the readout. It was the same cocktail of drugs the gangs used on the prostitutes on their first few nights out on the streets, to get them addicted. 

Feeling Bruce's presence behind him, he held out the kit, letting Bruce take it, heard the grunt of annoyance and then Bruce knelt down next to Colin. "Sweep the property for more of the children, Robin. I will take care of him."

Damian stood up, wavered slightly for a moment, images of all the possible scenarios swimming in his mind. He took a shaky step and then shut himself down, pushed it all away as he flung himself over the balcony, launched off the side of the staircase and landed in the hallway, picking up a metal pipe one of these idiots had been using. 

The first three rooms were empty, but the fourth was pay dirt. He found rows of thin blankets and rolled up t-shirts for pillows. Each makeshift cot contained a child, all of them laying there, listless and _vacant_ , and something inside of Damian ripped in that moment. 

Reaching up, he hit his comm, switching channels, breathing out, "Red Hood, you out here tonight?"

The line opened with a whisper of air. "Sure am, kid. What's up?"

"I have a _favor_ to ask."

He heard the silence on the other side that implied Jason had stopped dead, that he wasn't even breathing on the other end of the line, knew his saying those words meant something _horrible_. "Anything."

"Your brand of justice needs to be served." Damian stepped into the room, closed the door most of the way and moved to the first child, kneeling and watching their chest rise and fall, watching the glossy-eyed way they stared up at him. "They're just _children_. Eighteen of them in here, drugged and-" his voice caught and he shoved the rest out in a harsh whisper, "they are going to _sell them_ , Jay. Sell them to _those_ bars. Abuse has been working this case for months and tonight, we found them and... he... they..." he couldn't even get it out, his fist clenching as he gazed across the room, anger and _fear_ taking a grip in his heart. 

"Tell me when the transport leaves. They will never make it to the precinct."

"Yeah..." Damian stood up, moved amongst the children, making sure each was breathing, finally left the room and headed down the hall. Two more doors, one a dirty bathroom and the last one containing a teenage girl with a terrified look in her eyes and a girl that couldn't have been more than four, shaking in her arms. Damian's mind added two and two together and he felt his heart wrench painfully.

Stepping back, he murmured, "Stay here, I have one more room to clear." 

He took one step and the teenager was up like a shot. She grabbed his arm, shaking her head frantically. "No! Not that room! Please!"

Damian stared at her for what felt like an eternity before he placed his hand over hers. "Why?"

She bowed her head, a sharp tremble going through her form. "They're... they're all..." she paled, the last word tumbling free with the greatest of efforts, "dead."

Damian gently disentangled her hand and squeezed it lightly. "Stay there, I _have to check_."

One stumbling step brought her back into the room where she knelt and curled herself protectively around the little girl. Damian moved to the next door, took a deep breath and held it as he pushed open the door. 

What he saw instantly set his stomach to rolling, left him shaking with _rage_. The surge of anger he felt was something that hadn't been in him in _so very long_ and he knew instantly he was powerless to stop his need for retribution. He turned away from the blood slicked floor, away from the gory mess he was sure had once been _someone_ and pulled the door shut behind him. 

He held out his hand to the girl, watched her pick up the younger child and then she took his hand. "Show me which one did _that_." Leading her toward the two rooms of tied up men, all of them knocked out, dropping against the walls, she paused in front of the woman. "Her. She chose one every day and they... they disappeared." The careful way the girl said it told Damian she was watching her words around the kid in her arms, the kid who had her face tucked against the teen's shoulder.

Damian squeezed her hand. "Speak only to Detective Shierra. Ask for him if you have to. Then tell him every single bit of the truth. Hold nothing back about this or anything you have ever overheard. Ask him for protective custody and tell him Robin and Nightwing sent you. They will make you disappear, I promise."

She shifted closer to his side, tensing, and a second later Bruce appeared, Colin over his shoulder, passed out but clearly still breathing. 

Damian put a soothing hand on her back, giving it a gentle rub. "We must leave before the police arrive."

She nodded and Damian reached up, gently tucking a matted chunk of her hair back from her face. "Do not let these people ruin the life ahead of you. You are strong, remember that."

He lightly touched the child on her back and then he was gone, darting away with Bruce, the sound of the front door being slammed open heralding the arrival of the police. He paused for an instant on the window sill, ensuring it was who it was supposed to be, and then made his leap into the darkness, catching the line they'd used to come in, using it to zip line back down to where he belonged. 

They ducked into the Batmobile and as they were closing the door, Damian's comm came to life again, Jason's whispered voice in his ear. "I will track them. Which one did the worst of it?"

Damian tipped his head back, pushed his hand through his hair, played at telling Bruce his report, using his usual voice for it. "No extras on the lower level, eighteen children, one toddler, and a teenager. Last two were not drugged, the rest were. One room where they were killing them, the teenager said the woman would take the children away to that room and they'd never see them again. Possible experimentation."

Bruce's low rumble of a voice told Damian he was _angry_ , just as angry as he was, if not more so. "Or for the sport of it. Some people are not _people_ at all, Robin."

Damian gave a small hum and Jason breathed out, "I will make her suffer, Robin. For all she has done she will not be granted a fast exit."

Closing his eyes, Damian let a little shudder run through him. "How is Colin?"

"I gave him the antidote. He will be ill for a day or so and he will be staying with us. As long as that was the first dose, he will be fine."

Damian gave a short nod, turning and peering back at Colin's passed out form, at the way his boyfriend was splayed out over the seat, clearly completely out of it, and his heart wrenched so hard it almost made him physically ill.

Swallowing it back, Damian faced forward again. "I think I would like to go home for the evening, please."

"Wouldn't have it any other way."

The chill in Damian's bones eased enough for him to feel the warmth that Bruce's words had to offer him, allowed him to be thankful for the people in his life. No matter his hardships, no matter the strain of it all, _they made a difference in the world_ , and really, that was all that mattered.


	15. Chapter 15

Dust moats floated across the single beam of sunlight slowly creeping across the floor towards the bed Damian and Colin rested upon. The dresser was an array of all the things Damian had been using to keep Colin as comfortable as possible: cool water, a damp cloth on a meal tray, simple crackers, and Alfred's energy-giving drink. Plastic lined the floor beside the bed and a metal trashcan sat with a liner in it, pending the next bout of _horror_ waiting to be unleashed from Colin's system.

Bruce hadn't been kidding when he'd said Colin would be ill. The first night had been the most worrying for Damian, despite the fact that none of _this_ had been happening then. The vacant, listless stare of Colin's gaze had worried Damian nearly sick; to the point his stomach rolled each time he so much as glanced at him, felt his heart wrench with every single instant he studied him. Sunrise of the following morning had heralded in a horror show of screaming and _bile_ , a seizure that Damian had barely kept himself together through, and Alfred fretting and more fluids being administered via IV. 

Colin still hadn't _said_ anything. Even now, the second day, the most recognition Damian had gotten from him had been Colin reaching for him just after the seizure and holding his hand so tightly he thought for sure it was Abuse's strength flowing through him in those moments. 

Now, he sat cross-legged beside Colin, having dozed on and off through the night, unwilling to leave his side to go on patrol; Bruce had stopped in the doorway to imply he was asking, not saying a word when Damian didn't move. For all of their issues, for all of the things that Damian both loved and hated about Bruce, he was thankful for the lack of useless questions. There was no _are you okay_ , because it was obvious he was not. There was no _aren't you coming with me_ , because that, too, was more than readily apparent. 

Closing his eyes, Damian let his mind drift once again, allowed himself to think about how Bruce had pulled him to his side, tucked him against his body, cape draped over them both as Alfred had flitted around Colin's form in the cave. How his arm had been so strong around Damian's shoulders and his presence filled with a warmth that Damian couldn't recall having had from Bruce at any point in his life. He remembered how he'd clung to him, arms locked around him, fighting back the trembles his body wanted to let forth as he stared at the way Colin's arm had flopped off the side of the table, his open hand reminding Damian of so many _corpses_ he'd seen hauled away in his life. Never had it _stung_ like that, never had it impacted him with such force that it left his breath unable to be pulled inward, his heart unable to find a healthy pace inside his chest. 

For the first time in his life, he had tasted true _terror_.

Damian shuddered, opening his eyes and reaching to push some of Colin's hair back from his forehead. His hand cupped his boyfriend's cheek, rested there as he allowed his emotions to overcome him, allowed his heart to clench up and his eyes to prickle with saline. He gave one hiccuping intake of air, a sob closed off from the world, watching as Colin's eyelids fluttered open. 

For half a second, he saw _recognition_ and then he saw _pain_. Colin's body jerked and he rolled away, half falling off the bed before Damian could catch him. Colin caught the trash can and a second later he was dry heaving into it, his entire body shaking from the force of it. 

Sliding off the edge of the bed, Damian settled behind him, slid his arms around Colin's abdomen, rested his cheek between his shoulder blades and closed his eyes. 

By the time Colin's body stopped trying to rid it of something he didn't have to give, Damian was rocking them both gently back and forth, his hands pressed up under Colin's shirt, giving his cold body warmth from the contact. He hadn't really realized it, but he was humming Colin's favorite piece, something Damian usually played for him on violin, his voice quiet against Colin's shoulder. 

Colin leaned back toward him, his body shivering almost violently before he settled, one hand touching Damian's through his shirt. 

"Dames..." it was so quiet, so very _torn_ , but it was _everything_.

Damian's arms tightened. "I have you. Tell me what you need."

Another tremble and then, "Shower. Hot."

"Can you stand?" Damian slowly untangled himself from Colin, pushing himself up to his feet and offering him a hand.

Colin's fingers wrapped around Damian's forearm and with effort, he hauled himself to his feet, only to stumble against Damian's chest with a soft cry of pain. "H-hurts!"

Damian wrapped his arms around Colin, tucking him close against him. "What does?"

" _Everything_."

Slipping his arm up around Colin's back, he held him to his side and took his other hand, holding it steady as he started them towards his attached bathroom. Their steps were staggering, shuffling, and _slow_ , but Damian got them into the bathroom, got Colin into the shower and onto the little wooden seat that came down from the wall. Helping him out of his shirt, he and Colin both managed to get his sweatpants off, something it had taken both Alfred and Damian to get onto Colin in the first place. 

Stepping out, he stripped and stepped back into the shower, closing the glass door behind him. He tapped the button to start the water heating up, hearing it start to trickle down the drain. It turned on a few moments later, reaching the threshold he had set for required temperature and he stepped over to get the soap just as Colin leaned forward and started to gag again. He heard the desperate sobs in between and he sighed, listening to see if he was actually managing to get anything up or not, hearing nothing to tell him he was. 

Frowning, he opened the door and reached out, getting the plastic bottle of water he'd left on the counter - carelessly - the night before and stepping back in. He waited until Colin was breathing again and held it out to him. "It'll give you something to get back up... will hurt less this way."

Colin stared at him and then weakly shook his head. "I don't wanna puke in your bathroom...."

Damian snorted. "This is preferable over all the places you _have_ in the past two days."

He watched the way Colin's shoulders shook as he shuddered and then the bottle was being lifted from his fingers, a few swallows being taken, and then it was handed back. Stepping out again, he put it on the counter and then came back in. He reached for the soap and his loofah, lathering it up and stepping over to Colin, starting to wash him, Colin just trembling gently under his touch.

"You worried me," he finally admitted, his voice sounding broken even to his own ears.

Colin's hand came to rest on his hip, fingertips squeezing as Damian continued to lather him up. Colin made a choked sound and then he was shoving Damian back as he leaned over, his entire body heaving this time, the water he'd drank spilling from between his lips as he gagged over the drain. 

Damian frowned, watching the pain on Colin's face, the way his body clenched over both what was happening and the clear _agony_ of it. He reached out, sliding a hand through Colin's wet hair, providing him some measure of something that _didn't_ hurt while this was happening to him. Colin gagged until his eyes rolled back and his body wavered. Damian reached for him, tucking him against him as he felt him go completely lax against him, passed out from lack of oxygen, and he pressed his fingers to his pulse, listening as Colin's body forced him to breathe now that he was out. 

He gave it a minute, made sure he was breathing fine and that his pulse calmed down before he shifted him against the wall and knelt, making quick work of getting him the rest of the way cleaned up. He shifted to his hair, doing a quick shampoo and conditioning before he washed Colin's face and torso once more. His own body got a quick wash - possibly the quickest he'd ever managed - and then he hit the button to turn off the shower.

Stepping out, he grabbed his towel, drying off enough he wasn't going to be sopping wet, and grabbed one for Colin, his own tucked around his waist. Opening the door, he found Alfred just turning back the freshly re-sheeted bed, a new liner in the trashcan and brand new water and drink settled on the dresser along with Damian's own breakfast. Their eyes met and Damian gave him a tired little smile. "Thank you."

Warmth blossomed in Alfred's eyes. "You are most welcome, Master Damian. How is he?"

"Passed out on me."

Immediately Alfred started toward him across the room. Damian let him into the room, watched Alfred do the same assessments he had done and then nod. "Shall we take him back to the bed then?"

"That... that would be nice." Damian maneuvered himself into the shower as well, getting himself into position to take most of Colin's weight, Alfred taking the rest as they got him between them and got him all the way to the bed. Once he was settled, Alfred went right for the dressers, about to get clothing out for him, but Damian put his hand on his arm, shaking his head. "He will be fine. Let him be."

Alfred let out a quiet click of his tongue, extracting a pair of jeans and holding them out to Damian.

It took a moment, but Damian realized they were his favorite pair; the ones he liked to wear when he needed something wrapped around him that was familiar and comforting. He took them and a moment later, he was holding his softest pair of briefs as well as an old tour shirt Dick had left behind at some point that Damian had laid claim to. His hoodie was draped over the back of his desk chair already, looking like it had just come from the dryer and Damian felt relief flood through him as he murmured, "Oh."

Alfred's hand ghosted over his shoulder. "When he wakes, have him drink more of the fluid. He is weak right now. Fighting this off is no easy task."

Damian's heart wrenched as he nodded, watched Alfred leave, the door close behind him. He made quick work of getting his clothing on, running the towel through his hair again before settling at his desk, tugging his breakfast tray toward him and starting in on it.

It wasn't even ten minutes before he was done, his belly pleasantly full and the fog his mind had been in since the incident lifting enough for him to recall he had homework to do. As much as he wanted to stay with Colin, it just wasn't feasible to stay here all the time. He wrote a quick note, a simple, " _Drink this. - D_ and settled it where Colin would see it first thing when he opened his eyes. 

Picking up his hoodie, he grabbed his phone, wallet, and keys and slipped out of the room, pausing in the hallway when he heard Bruce's voice from the foyer. He couldn't hear the words, but he could tell Dick was the other person speaking and he hurried to the stairs, slowing down to calmly descend them, pausing on the last step to peer curiously at where Dick and Bruce stood in the entryway conversing. 

"You're sure he's okay?"

Damian watched as Bruce's hand flitted up, went to push through his hair but stopped short, hesitated in the air, and then fell back to his side. There was a strain in Bruce's voice when he spoke, one that Damian wasn't sure he had ever heard there before. "No. Are we ever sure?"

Dick made a soft noise that Damian knew meant he was torn between agreeing and not wanting to and then he was hugging Bruce, his arms locked around him, Bruce somewhat awkwardly hugging him back. It left somewhat of an amused feeling in Damian's gut, knowing Bruce was awkward around all of them when it came to affection. He'd been so blinded by his needs in the past that he hadn't considered that Bruce was so similar to him in so many ways. While he'd yearned for touch, craved attention and love in so many ways, he'd also been nearly incapable of accepting it when he'd first arrived here. The first few times Dick had touched him, he'd jerked away, screamed horrible, nasty things at him. The first time _Tim_ had put a hand on him, he'd damn near taken his head off. For the longest time it had been only Alfred who got away with it and only because Damian had _thought_ him to be a fragile old man rather than the bad ass he'd proved to be over the years. 

But Dick had persisted and over time, Damian had craved the attention, wanted it even when it wasn't offered, until he would find himself standing closer and closer to him, putting himself in positions to try to obtain it without asking for it or trying to get it on his own. He'd _tried_ with his father then, seen Dick and him hug and the offers of affection Bruce _did_ give, the hand ruffling Dick's hair, the pats on the back to Tim, the friendly cupping of Alfred's shoulder every now and then. He had spent _years_ trying to put himself where it would be offered to him by his father and had been rebuffed time and again. 

Now, standing here, watching how stiff Bruce was in Dick's _far too lengthy_ hug, Damian finally understood. His father was no better than he had been; accepted the affection because it was necessary, but he wasn't comfortable with it. 

Stepping off the stairs, Damian stopped behind them, placed his hand on the small of his father's back, feeling Bruce tense for a second before Damian spoke. "Grayson."

Instantly, Dick let go of Bruce, flinging himself at Damian. Damian let Dick wrap him up in his arms, eased into it with a relief he couldn't quite explain, and pushed his nose against Grayson's bicep. "I am okay. Colin is... recovering."

Dick's hands framed Damian's face and for an instant Damian realized he was still far too close for his usual habits, realized it _could_ tip Bruce off as to his and Damian's personal life, but he dismissed the fear of it, left only the wonder of having someone be so free with their affection towards him right in front of Bruce. Dick's hand moved to Damian's arm, his fingertips floating over the flesh where beneath both layers of clothing lay the remnants of the scratches the bullet had left. "Are you-"

"I am _fine_ , Grayson." Damian let his hand come to rest on Dick's chest, pressed lightly to give him a solid grounding. "You worry too much."

Dick's gaze flitted between Bruce and Damian and then back, staring up at Bruce until he nodded once. "A graze is all."

Dick deflated then and Damian slid his hand to rub Dick's arm, stepping closer to his father, feeling a hand settle between his shoulder blades, resting there easily. A thrill slid through him and he accepted it, bypassed it as he nodded toward the study. "I have homework to complete. If you wi-"

"You do not." 

Damian turned to look up at Bruce, confusion in his gaze. "There are three assignments I need to complete before tonight's deadline."

"I have explained there was a family emergency and you have been granted an extension until next week. The new assignments are in your email as well. I trust you will have no difficulty with them, they appear to be what you would call _beneath you_."

Damian clicked his tongue against his teeth, ducking his head enough to hide the small smile. It was a dig and he knew it, one Bruce was trying to tack on as a joke and if he'd been one to burst out laughing as Dick tended to do, he would have been clutching his sides. Instead, he gave a small shake of his head. "I see. Then it should be no problem for Grayson and I to provide Titus with some exercise."

Behind them, Alfred cleared his throat and Damian heard the smallest clink of Titus' collar. Turning, he watched as the clasp to Titus' leash was clasped on and Alfred held it out toward him. Somehow he was always two steps ahead of them; but then again Damian assumed that was supposedly his _job_ and Alfred was nothing short of perfect in that respect. He accepted the leash and flicked his gaze up to Dick, waiting on the little shrug as Dick reached for the door, opening it and tipping his head toward it. "Let's go then."

Bruce stepped away from them, letting Damian pass. Once they were outside, the door closed behind them and Damian turned to start down the path towards the old mausoleum. 

Halfway down the path Dick slipped his arm around Damian's shoulders. "Is he really okay?"

"I believe so. Today he at least spoke with me."

He heard Dick's little cut-off sound of sympathy and he shifted his steps so that he was closer to Dick's side, half leaning on him as they traversed the path they'd both wandered dozens of times. Titus trotted easily at his side, not tugging at his leash like most dogs would have done, leaving enough slack it probably felt like he wasn't on one at all. 

Dick's steps slowed once they rounded the corner that was hidden away from the entirety of the rest of the grounds. Damian paused, leaning into the touch of Dick's hand against his cheek, sighing in relief at the contact. He pressed a kiss to his palm, turning to press his cheek back against it as he gazed at Dick from slitted eyes, watching the continual war wage on his features. "Is there anything _you_ need?"

Damian closed his eyes for a moment and when he opened them again, he let go of Titus' leash, stepping into Grayson's arms, feeling his hands slide along his hips and push up under the hem of his hoodie. He pushed up on his toes, meeting Dick's lips with his own, sighing into the intimacy of the contact. Fingertips splayed across his lower back, holding him close, Dick's tongue swiping over his lower lip, delving into his mouth when Damian parted his lips for him. 

Eager, he hooked one hand behind Dick's neck, clung to him, fire raging in his belly as he clutched at him. 

By the time they parted, Damian was panting for his breath, felt lightheaded as he fought not to let his desperation for affection shove him over into full-blown arousal. He knew instinctively that while Dick was just fine with all that had happened between them so far, that he would feel _horrible_ having Damian while Colin was upstairs half out of his mind with the cocktail of drugs that rampaged through his system.

He took a step back, chewed his lower lip as he gazed up at Dick, _knew_ his eyes were alight with the pleasure of such contact. Kneeling, he took Titus' leash again, giving himself a moment to settle himself before he stood again and offered one hand to Dick. 

Wordlessly, they linked fingers and started off down the path once again. 

Confusion waged in Damian's gut for the rest of the walk, but not for the reasons he figured anyone else would have thought. Seeing his therapist, speaking with her about the things he wanted from Bruce, the things he did with Dick and with Colin, how much he loved and adored Colin, and having to _admit_ things he barely allowed his own mind to process at times had his mind full of _other people's_ reactions. How someone else would see what was going on between all of them and think him sick and twisted, think him a shame, and possibly think Colin a pushover for allowing all of it. 

But the truth was, he knew that wasn't how things were at all. Bruce only did what he could for Damian, even if it was outside of his own comfort zones. Dick... they cared for one another in their own ways and while Damian understood that his desperation for Dick was due - in part - to how much of a surrogate _parent_ he'd been to him for years, he also understood that he didn't have the same feelings toward Alfred, who had picked up the other half of those duties without question. Something else burned between them and it was that part that made everything okay when they gave in with each other. 

Beyond all of that, Damian knew if Colin had said a word to him about not wanting Damian to so much as think about any of the others, he would do everything in his power to heed those wishes, because he _loved_ Colin with everything he had. He wasn't foolish enough to not realize why his hands shook when he thought about him, why he could stare at him for hours - even in his current state - and _see_ their future together. A world without Colin was a world he wasn't sure he wanted to be in and that alone was more than enough for him to see the differences in how he felt for each of the people in his life. 

The rest of the world could think and feel however they did about them. All that mattered was that he had his safety net. He could fight his demons or he could placate them as he had in his father's chair or in Dick's lap or against the sink in Colin's bathroom. He could rage against them and deny them all or he could _accept_ and live a life that was _worth something_. In that, there was no choice. There never had been. 

He would live with his demons, allow them space within himself, and he would find _peace_ between them. Dick and Colin and Bruce... they were all pieces of that. Even Jason, as distant as he was, had become some portion of his ability to live with who he was, and Damian could find nothing wrong with any of it when he looked at it like that.


	16. Chapter 16

The clock on the mantel ticked away the seconds, Damian's hands near-soundlessly flying over the keys of his laptop as he wrote out the final touches on the very last of his assignments. He knew he had an extension, knew there was time later to do the work, but he found it to be something he could focus on instead of doting on Colin's passed out form on his bed. 

Today, Colin had kept everything he'd put in down, but he'd sat and stared vacantly for hours on end and something about that had _disturbed_ Damian on a deeper level than he'd been prepared for. Bruce had left workups on Colin's blood for him: what was still in his system, what had left and why he was staring off like this, but it didn't make it any less disturbing. He'd set himself to writing hours ago just to avoid watching Colin watch _nothing_ , having already exhausted all attempts to speak with him. 

He finished up the report and posted it up to the course website, sent a quick note to the professor that he was still out on family emergency, but had found a bit of time to do his assignments and wanted to turn them in as quickly as possible. 

Closing everything down, he curled up in his recliner next to the window and tucked his earpiece in. Tapping it to the right channel, he listened for a moment and then offered a quiet, "Hood?"

The line crackled and then Jason's voice was in his ear. "Robin."

Leaning onto one fist, his eyes glued to Colin's sleeping form, to the steady rise and fall of his chest. "I trust it was _taken care of_?"

"There's proof if you want it, birdy, but it might turn even _your_ stomach." Jason's voice sounded rough, _guarded_ , and Damian knew that meant he'd taken his time, that he'd probably picked the woman apart before putting a couple bullets in her brain. He allowed his mind to traverse the possibilities before he took in a steadying breath and whispered, "Abuse is still... _absent_."

"I've been keeping tabs on the toxicology reports. It's the same as the girls you pay out, isn't it?" He could hear the wind whisper through the comm as Jason took flight, somewhere over the city, after some unseen target, and Damian closed his eyes, let himself feel as though he were out there with him for a moment. It was growing harder and harder to remain here, to leave his work to others, knowing they weren't the iron fist he was.

"Yes. Either the same supplier or-"

"Or same people." Jason's comm went silent for a moment and then Damian heard him sigh. "It's the same as a few other rings. I checked. _Funny thing_ , they all deal in older women except that grouping up in the Blüd."

"There is one in Gotham. Abuse was after that one... found the one in Blüdhaven instead."

"Shouldn't have gone in alone."

"He would not have if he had a choice. He is not stupid." Damian opened his eyes, finding Colin staring at him, eyes a little less vacant than before. Studying him, he breathed out, "If you find anything...."

"You will be the second to know."

"You will be third to know if I find anything on my end." Damian pushed himself up, hand coming up to his comm, pausing as Jason spoke again.

"We go it together. Without the Bat. Do what has to be done, you hear me?"

Staring at Colin, at the love of his damn life and _knowing_ what he was going through just coming off one dose of this, knowing women and children were being thrown into this, Damian knew there was an unstoppable fire inside of him over this one and he _knew_ Bruce would turn a blind eye if he had to as long as Damian kept it off the news. "You will get this wish, Hood." 

Without another word, he disconnected the line and pulled the earpiece out, placing it on his desk, moving to kneel next to the bed, reaching up and pushing Colin's hair back from his eyes, cupping his cheek. "Are you with me?"

Colin nodded, blinking blearily at Damian. "Feel like shit, but... yeah." His hand came up to cover Damian's, the pressure of his fingers pushing against Damian's, holding him in place. 

Something that had been coiled tight inside of Damian slipped free and he was instantly exhausted. Days of napping rather than sleeping, of an hour of sleep spent sitting up and ten minutes at a time when he fell asleep on the can or at the table were all he had managed since Colin had come back to the manor with them. He felt the prickle of tears he'd held back stinging at his eyes and he bowed his head, letting them fall as he took Colin's free hand, pressed his knuckles to his lips and held him there, whispering the words he'd learned from the monks so many years ago, words of placation and strength, of hope and life. 

When he finished, he looked up, his eyelashes damp, and he pushed himself up from the floor, standing without the help of his hands. He crawled over Colin, settling behind him and sliding his arms around his waist, pushing his face against his shoulder and just _existing_.

Colin turned in his arms, pulled Damian in so that he was curled up against Colin's chest, his head tucked under Colin's own. It felt _safe_ in a way Damian hadn't accomplished since before the incident, felt like _home_ in a way nothing else ever did. He curled his fingers around Colin's, squeezed as he forced words out that were so unlike him that he understood the way Colin gasped over them. 

"You mean the world to me. Life itself feels empty without you at my side." He swallowed thickly, listened to the way Colin's heart slammed against his chest, to the hitch in his breath. "I love you as I could never love another."

Colin's hand disentangled from his own, his arms gathering Damian up impossibly closer to him. His lips were against his hair and then the best words Damian had ever heard spoken to him were showered down upon him. 

"I promise to be at your side as long as you'll have me, to love you to eternity. You are the most exquisite part of my life, Mr. Wayne."

Damian huffed out a little sound at the _Mr. Wayne_ part of Colin's little speech, hiding his smile against Colin's shoulder. He felt the kiss to his hair and he closed his eyes, stifling a yawn, his toes curling, the whole thing working its way up until he couldn't stop it, his eyes tearing with the intensity of the action. He hummed softly and Colin rubbed an easy circle on his back.

"Rest now, Dames... I'm back."

Damian was fairly certain nothing in the world had ever seemed like such a particularly good idea _as that_.


	17. Chapter 17

Damian sat curled up on Colin's couch, still half in his Robin uniform, pieces of it scattered across the coffee table and floor in front of him, his cape draped over the back of the couch. A book lay open on his lap, only a few dozen pages left until the end. Normally, he would have just crashed out with Colin, would have plopped face-first into the pillows and that would have been the end of it. This blasted book, however, was possibly the most boring piece of work in the _entire_ world and it just so happened to be required reading for one of his classes. 

He felt his eyelids droop again and he sighed, reaching up to rub them before blinking down at the book, picking back up with the same paragraph he'd read four times already. _That_ was always the bad part about a horrible book. Somehow, he would always end up having to re-read the same things over and over because his brain simply refused to parse them.

Sighing, he placed his finger on the page, drawing along under the words as he read them, forcing himself to keep on track until he turned the page. 

Two more pages and Damian huffed, tossing the book onto the couch. It was hopeless in his current state of exhaustion. Nothing in the world was going to allow him to read that damn thing with any accuracy at the moment. 

Peeling off the rest of his suit, he traipsed back towards the bedroom, pausing at the doorway to ditch his jock, leaving it to the left of the door as he shuffled across the room and crawled up onto the bed. Shoving the covers down, he settled and tugged them back up, curling up at Colin's back, not touching him so he wouldn't wake him, but close enough to satisfy the part of him that wanted to wrap himself around Colin and hold on forever.

His mind was quick to plunge him into sleep, only minutes after his head hit the pillows, one hand outstretched, the very tip of his pinky finger just barely touching Colin's back.

\--

Damian woke slowly, his brain foggy and sluggish. The warmth of Colin's body was pressed up against his side and his cock was heavy against his hip, thick with desire. He pulled at the remnants of his dreams, found them - for once - clear of anything sexual and he wondered for a moment why he was aching so badly if it wasn't for that. 

Colin's hand brushed over his abdomen, the touch feather-light, and Damian had to hold his hips still to keep them from bucking, waiting to see what Colin was up to. His hand trailed down over defined muscles, traced along the crease of his hip, just under his where his cock rested, and three fingers lightly played with his hair, just barely teasing the ends. It was enough contact to excite, but not enough to have woken him. His cock twitched and he heard Colin's excited exhale of breath, felt him shift against his side, and then the _heat_ of Colin's erection was pressing against his hip.

He could almost feel Colin's hand hovering over his cock, could feel the desire he was certain his boyfriend had to touch him right then. But he also knew Colin had always been one to at least imply he wanted things, not simply make assumptions, and as much as Damian wanted to lay here and find out if he'd cross his little unwritten line, he knew it would be better to head it off with _permission_. 

Pushing up his hips, Damian brushed his cock over Colin's palm, tipping his head back and breathing out, "Wilkes... _do not tease_."

Colin let out a half-choked moan and in an instant, he was scrambling over Damian, the bed creaking as he situated himself between his thighs. There was a little click of the cap of their most used lubricant bottle and then the press of Colin's fingers against his ass, spreading lube but not doing much else. After a quick scramble in the dresser drawer, Colin settled back on his heels and ripped open the condom, his hands shaking as he moved to try to put the condom on, a whine coming up as he fumbled and almost dropped it.

Damian pushed himself up enough to bat his hands out of the way and help ease the condom down over his cock. Leaning up, he pressed a quick kiss to the corner of Colin's mouth, hooking one arm behind him and pulling him down with him, hips lifting to help Colin get aligned properly. 

Two frantic jerks of Colin's hips and Damian let out a groan as Colin's cock sank into him. Colin let out a shout, scrabbled for purchase on the bed, and then he was thrusting frantically, hips snapping roughly against Damian, one hand trying to be everywhere at once against Damian's skin. He pinched a nipple, then dragged his hand down over his abdomen, grasped his cock and stroked quickly for a few seconds and then snagged his hip, holding on bruisingly tight as he snapped his hips so hard the bed started to protest.

Damian arched up for Colin, his breath panting out as he watched his lover come _unglued_ over him. There was something so perfect about Colin's desperation, about how _badly_ he seemed to need Damian right then. It was beautiful in every single way and Damian was just thankful they'd learned he was relaxed enough just out of sleep that he didn't _need_ preparation in order to take Colin inside of him. He rocked his hips with him, held onto his wrists as he watched Colin's face dissolve into a look of complete bliss. 

Colin let out a cry that could have been some fraction of Damian's name as he pushed all the way in and stilled, his cock throbbing as he emptied himself into the latex between them.

Damian's balls were tight, his own orgasm right on the cusp of happening, but he made no move to go after himself, just enjoyed watching Colin come down from whatever had worked him up so badly he'd been absolutely _desperate_ for a fuck. When Colin's body finally started to relax from the rigid way he'd been holding himself, Damian reached up, sliding his hand along Colin's chest, gaining his attention back from whatever place minds went to after a particularly good orgasm. "So _desperate_..."

As he watched, Colin's cheeks went a little red and Damian arched his eyebrows, rolling his hips ever so slightly. "Care to share?"

Colin shifted, slowly pulling out and discarding the condom. His fingertips trailed over Damian's hips, across his belly, and then wrapped around his cock, slowly starting to stroke. "Thinking about waking you up like this..." Colin slid down on the bed and Damian gasped as he was taken into Colin's mouth, barely keeping himself from jerking upwards at the sensation of such warmth around him. 

He pushed his hand into Colin's hair, held on as he gasped out, " _Shit_ , you were thinking of _this_?"

Colin let out a grunt around him and Damian tugged his hair, pulling him up, whispering, "Want to hear you say it."

"I wanted to suck you off, wake you up with it."

Damian groaned, pushing lightly at Colin to get him to take him back in. Once he had, he ran his hand through his hair, almost petting it. "You are more than welcome to wake me with - ah - this!" His hips arched this time and he panted, hands moving to grasp at the covers, clenching them as he hovered on the brink of orgasm. He hitched in breath after breath, his stomach tight and his thighs quivering, and then he was rocking up into Colin's mouth as he started to cum, giving a quick shout as he tossed his head back. His orgasm wracked his body, leaving him breathless and trembling, his balls impossibly tight against him, heat burning him up from the inside out. He shoved both hands into his own hair and tugged, rolling his hips and moaning as he slipped free of Colin's mouth with the action.

" _Fuck_."

Colin shifted up over him, hovering there, his tongue darting out to lick at his abused lips, a little grin forming on them. "Rocked your world, Dames?"

Reaching up, Damian hooked Colin and tugged him down, pressed a hard kiss against his lips. His words were but a breath against them, "You always do."


	18. Chapter 18

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Massive brutality in this chapter. This one is a bit more necessary to the plot though.  
> If for any reason you need to skip it, just leave me a comment below stating such and I'll reply with a brief synopsis for you.

The flutter of Damian's cape heralded his arrival just behind the girls on the corner. His weekly visit was due and this time he had company. Abuse's hulking form lingered in the shadows at the edge of the building and Jason's boots hit the ground a half step behind him. 

Damian pulled free his usual roll of cash, this one larger than his standard. He cleared his throat, jerking the attention of most of the girls toward him. He held it up and flicked his gaze amongst them, finding his primary target for what he was giving out tonight. Two steps and he was at her side, handing her a couple grand. He leaned in and breathed into her ear, "Get out of here. Take your kid and leave Gotham. Hell is about to rain down and I do _not_ want you involved." He tucked the money into her palm and brushed his free hand along her back ever so gently. "Take care of yourself."

She shot him a grateful look, mouthed out, "Thank you," and then she was off like a shot, disappearing down the alleyway Abuse was lingering in. Damian watched long enough to see the shadows move, knowing Abuse was shadowing her to protect her, as he'd asked him to do. Two people out of harm's way and less of a lump in Damian's throat if he were honest.

He held up the rest of the money. "Who is here by force?"

There was a murmur of confessions and Damian gave a sharp nod. "If given enough, who amongst you can leave for good?"

One girl - younger than the rest by enough that Damian questioned if she was even legal - stepped forward. "I can. There ain't no one but me."

Damian pulled off a thousand and held it out to her. "Leave Gotham tonight. I cannot protect any of you beyond this. I can only promise what I hold right here."

Two more came forward and Damian quietly asked how many people, peeled off the amount he deemed enough to get them out and give them enough until they could find _something_ , even if it was menial. He paid a few more of the girls for the rest of their shift money and sent them off. 

Four remained, one that refused to even meet his gaze and the others looking so doggedly _dejected_ that Damian knew they'd been cowed into believing this was the only life they could ever have. He tucked the rest of his money away and gave them a nod before rounding the corner, Jason hot on his heels. He broke into a run as Jason pitched an explosive at the door to the crack house that served as the post for those who put the girls out there every night.

His hands reached back and pulled free a set of escrima he hadn't used in a damn long time. With a push of a button they crackled to life, electricity flowing through them, hot and _deadly_ if used correctly. Behind him, he heard Jason cock his guns, heard the familiar pull of a pin from a grenade and he kicked the first door on the hallway in. Two men stood up, going for their guns on the table and Jason pitched the grenade in, obviously more than a little cooked as it exploded the instant it touched the table and - not for the first time - Damian was glad he had all the shielding he did.

One man twitched and Jason's gun fired once, a dull thunk and the corpse stilled. The rest of the doors on the hallway slammed open and Damian ducked into the room with Jason, one on each side of the door, drawing them into a funnel through the door. Three men hit the floor before Damian ever had a chance and in some ways he was grateful for it, grateful for the fewer number of times he'd have to claim a life tonight. The more Jason took down, the fewer Damian would have to look to his father over in _shame_ when it came time. 

It had taken him years to learn shame for the taking of human life and while he was still more than willing to claim it for the right reasons, he had never forgotten how many he'd taken for the _wrong ones_. 

He took a step, connected the escrima to a man's gut, slammed the second back into another's neck, heard the choked off scream.

Jason's left hand came back, fired off two shots and both people dropped to the floor. The rough growl of Jason's voice sifted across the line from inside his helmet and Damian fought back a shudder at how _feral_ it sounded. 

"You distract, _I kill_."

A certain amount of relief came with that and Damian could find no land in which he could disagree. He hurdled toward the door, sliding out into the hallway, pitching one stick against the wall, rebounding into two men, the other coming up right into the groin of a third, the sharp edges of his gauntlet slamming into the thigh of a woman who was fighting to pick up a gun. She screamed and Jason's shots rang out, equal in number to the amount Damian had _distracted_.

He was up in a second, rushing the last man in the hallway, colliding with him and slamming the escrima into his head, watching his eyes roll back in his head as they plummeted toward the floor. He rolled out of the way and Jason's shot thudded behind Damian. Every door stood open and Damian cased each room in quick succession, clearing them all the way to the end of the hallway. The last door, which stood slightly ajar, held three women on the floor, all of them looking achingly like Colin had during those horrible nights. He frowned, about to say something when his line crackled, his auto-responder telling him GCPD was in route on silent to his location.

He let out a growl and muttered, "Time to leave."

He turned, finding Jason standing far closer than he'd expected behind him. He studied him for half a second before he was off, rushing toward the front door. He shot across the lawn and scaled the fence into the next yard. He heard Jason right behind him, the pair of them making their way across the landscape using the fastest route that didn't involve the tops of buildings they could possibly manage.

Two blocks over Jason split off from him and Damian breathed out, "Elisson."

"Ten four."

Another few seconds and the line went dead. Damian disappeared into the darkness, completely swallowed up in it with the black suit he'd fashioned to look so much like a league suit for tonight. Nothing and no one would put him into the Robin category tonight. 

Tonight he was hellfire and damnation. Tonight he walked hand in hand with death. _Tonight they paid for their sins._


	19. Chapter 19

Damian crouched at the entrance to the alleyway on Elisson that he figured Jason would have chosen. He was simply another piece of the shadows for the time being, his pitch black suit allowing him to blend in and his inherent quietness lending him the ability to remain unheard. It had already been twenty minutes and if it weren't for the silence on his alert-line, he would have worried that Jason had gone and gotten himself caught or into another fight somewhere. As it was, he maintained a rigid sort of _edge_ to his being. 

The sensation of someone else crawled up his spine and Damian carefully shifted in the darkness, eased along the wall, his breath _silent_ in the noise of the city around them. He waited until someone dropped down in front of him, watched the way they moved, established that it was _Jason._

"Hood."

He watched the slightest stiffening of Jason's back, nearly imperceptible, and he fought down the age-old desire to gloat over how much quieter he was than the rest of them when he tried. The only rival to his silence was Tim and he _knew_ where that training had come from, much the same as his own, a single entity skipped by all the others, a fragment of something he knew Tim would never speak of and he would never ask about. 

"Next target in place?"

"Eight minutes and counting."

Jason eased a bag onto the ground, knelt and unzipped it, pulling free a garrote, settling it in his hands and giving Damian a nod. 

Something pitched inside of him, a knowledge that these people would get what they had given settling over his soul even as his newer lessons tugged at him, told him how unhappy Bruce would be if he ever found out. But the fact was, they were intentionally using weapons they normally wouldn't. Jason's previous guns has been picked up elsewhere, weren't his usual trusty duo, the grenades stinking of different materials than the ones Hood was known to deploy, and Damian hadn't used escrima in so long - even in practice - that it was going to be hard to place that on him. The fact that as far as he could tell, his father had never known he had a pair that issued electricity when a proper part was pushed was, perhaps, an advantage as well. That coupled with the replacements he'd taken from Dick's discarded equipment eons ago left no gaps in his inventory, left nothing missing from the cave tonight.

Jason darted across the street and Damian gave him the pause he needed, freeing his escrima, watching him shove the door open and drag the first man outside long enough to wrap the wire around his throat and yank, blood spreading down the front of the man's shirt in an instant. 

As if a switch had been flipped inside of him, Damian ran for the building, slid under the arch of the man's back and into the entryway. He came up to connect one escrima under a man's jaw, activating the electricity at the last second, letting him jerk violently for a moment before he dropped and Damian heard his cut-off choke as Jason took him out. 

This house held most of the higher ups, the ones who told the goons to do everything they had been doing instead of the actual people in pain or being abused. This place would have the logs and that was why they were hitting it. Their chosen methodology was silent and _deadly_ so that the alarms weren't raised, so that no one was told to go underground with what they were doing and it would all come bubbling back up inside the wealth of information he was certain resided here.

He slipped around the corner and slammed the escrima up into someone's face, heard a sickening crunch, the scent of urine filling the air and he was _certain_ he'd just killed the man as he dropped to the floor at Damian's feet. A little wave of anger flared inside of him, anger that he hadn't calculated right to let Jason do the mopup, that he'd been _too easy to drop_. 

Stepping around the body, he slid along the wall, peering through the crack of the door the guy had probably just come out of, saw the girl sprawled on the bed, the way she was staring sightlessly at the ceiling and he _knew_ he'd been justified in an instant. He crouched and pushed into the room, the door swinging open easily, showing him the barren walls, the bare lightbulb, and the log books open on the desk. 

Jason's presence was behind him and then split off toward the girl, a conversation held so low that Damian couldn't even hear it, and then Jason was at his side, watching as Damian thumbed through the books, making damn sure his mask was recording everything, sending it back to Jason's computer. Only the log files, nothing else for the entire night had been documented and this was only because it was _important_ to leave the evidence behind for the police to add everything together just as they already had.

Once he'd flipped through the last page, he turned, finding Jason watching the door, like a solid brick wall behind him. 

He moved around him, easing back out into the hallway. Together they closed the door most of the way, ensuring it was silent in doing so, and Damian chose the door with the most sound behind it. 

They shoved the door open and Damian went left, Jason going right down the center. Five men, all of whom looked utterly shocked to see them and all reaching for weapons from various places: their jackets, the back of their pants, from a holster under the table, and one going for his cell phone. Damian shoved his escrima against the phone, electrified it for a split second, hearing the sound of the battery exploding at the surge as he slammed the escrima into the man's gut, took his legs out from under him and came down on him _hard_ , foot against his mouth and nose as he brought his fist back against another man's groin. He heard the groan, watched him bend double as Jason wrapped the wire around his throat and yanked, slitting his throat almost instantly. 

Damian shoved himself up and away from the man he'd been keeping down, knocking a gun from another man's hand before he could fire it, Jason busy behind him from the gurgling sound coming from the ground where Damian had just been. 

Through some strange twist of the world, there was no screaming, no talking or shouting, only the sounds of bodies dropping to the floor, the clatter of guns being knocked away, the sickening gurgle of someone strangling on their own blood. Damian flicked his escrima, turning them both on as he left the room behind, kicking open the last door, staring at the man sitting on the toilet for half a second before he rushed into the room and shoved both sticks against his neck, watching him convulse, his eyes bugging out as he clunked and flailed against the toilet. 

Damian heard the click of a gun being cocked and he dropped to the ground out of instinct, crouched low and spun around, ready to strike. He watched Jason take aim and then pull the trigger. One gunshot - probably nothing new in this neighborhood- and the man stilled. The gun disappeared into the folds of Jason's chosen outfit for the evening and then they were on their way back out. 

Pausing by the room, Damian glanced at the girl on the bed, still staring at the ceiling so sightlessly, her eyes a glossy white, and he felt his stomach pitch in a way it hadn't in years. He felt the hand on his shoulder, slipping along down to his wrist, guiding him from the building, letting go only once they were back across the street, the garrote put away and the gun joining it in the bag. Jason hitched the bag over his shoulder and he motioned for Damian to follow him.

The rest of the night was spent cleaning out the other houses as they paused to extrapolate data from the logs every now and then, Jason's database feeding him the necessary information on his secure line - one he claimed Bruce either didn't know about or turned a blind eye to, knowing his former Robin was doing things he didn't truly want to know about. 

Dozens more cleaned off the face of the earth and by the time they stood a block away from the last house, Abuse having rejoined them for the finale, Damian was certain he reeked of blood and _death_. He knew the shine to his costume was the slick of blood unlike he'd seen in years, though he knew he'd only claimed one life tonight. All the others had been on Jason's ticket, each one another punch towards whatever tally the universe would count such an act to be. One look at Jason's face and Damian _knew_ he would be in confession tonight, knew he'd quietly whisper his sins and walk away pretending it wasn't killing him inside. 

The familiar sound of a spray paint can being shaken met Damian's ears and he watched as Colin knelt and held his stencil up to the wall, sprayed his R on it and then held it out to Damian. They were blocks away from the truth of it, the only connection here being the fact that one night closer to the beginning of all of this _cleanup:_ Colin had found one of the women and saved her, getting her out of Gotham with the very last dredges of his savings. It had been _that_ incident that sent Damian towards finding a solution to it all. 

He accepted the stencil and extracted the small can of gold from his own pouch, placing it right beside Abuse's, spraying it on the wall and then wordlessly holding it out to Jason, ready to be rebuffed, to be denied and scoffed at for such a _childish_ marking of their territory. Instead, Jason took the stencil and after a moment of rummaging, he came back up with a black marker from his belongings. Holding it to the wall, he rubbed the marker against it, leaving his R just to the side of Damian's. 

Colin took the stencil back, slipping it away into its proper pouch. He held his hand out and Damian didn't hesitate to take it, lovingly wrapping his own fingers around Colin's, quietly watching as Jason pulled himself up from the ground, watching him try to pull himself out of the mindset he had to be in in order to do what they had tonight. He took half a step forward and reached with his free hand, skimming it along Jason's jacket, over his arm to his wrist. Capturing it, he gave one tug, earning his attention, their eyes meeting for the smallest instant. 

"Come with us. Just tonight."

He watched the war play itself out on Jason's face, watched the desire to find solace in his old habits battle with the necessity for _living_ human contact. He watched his gaze settle on where Damian's hand gripped his wrist and then he was hitching his bag up over his shoulder, tugging his hand away, but not moving to leave them behind. He said _nothing_ , but Damian knew he would come with them, knew that for tonight they'd have a guest on Colin's couch that needed to be there more than anything else in the world.

They didn't speak, not a single word passing between them as they made their way across the city. The silence was easy, just the same as the gentle caress of the wind: companionable instead of stifling and for that Damian was grateful. 

Half an hour brought them to Colin's apartment, found them taking turns with the shower. By the time Damian exited the bathroom - the last one to clean up - the air was filled with the delicious scent of burgers from his favorite cart, the tang of lemons in the air telling him Colin had used his juicer to make lemonade. 

Settling on the couch next to Jason, he accepted his burger and offered his boyfriend a smile as he came into the room with a stack of glasses and a pitcher of lemonade. The couch dipped at his side and Colin settled right up against him, his warmth easing Damian's aches from the night, pushing tension away that the shower never could have managed. Jason passed Colin a burger as well and the drinks were poured, passed around along with a quiet volley of appreciative phrases. 

From the corner of his eye, Damian watched Jason seem to melt into the couch, watched the walls he so carefully built up around him begin to crumble, and he realized that if nothing else had been gained tonight, he could always mark it as the day he earned every ounce of trust Jason Todd had to give. In that, he could find nothing to regret.


	20. Chapter 20

Damian crouched beside of Bruce, Gotham's gentle wind pushing against the hood of his cape, whispering through his hair, caressing what little skin he showed to the world when he was out here as Robin. It had been almost twenty four hours since he and Jason had hit the house on the street below. Police still bustled around every which way and though the bodies had been taken away, everything was still taped off, the scent of death and explosives on the air. 

He could feel Bruce's gaze on him, knew he was under a microscope for the moment and he did everything he could to behave as he normally would have, waiting on their order to go down there and pick everything apart. When it didn't come within the usual period of time, he stood, a single click of his tongue issuing. "What is it we hope to learn from here that we cannot from there?"

Bruce's hand came to rest on his shoulder, the pressure firm enough to still him but easy enough to be companionable rather than threatening. "I have learned all that I needed to know already."

Something deep in the pit of Damian's stomach wrenched and he narrowed his eyes at the scene. "I fail to see _how_ , Father. We have not looked at the crime scene."

"I did so last night." Bruce's fingers gripped a little harder, though it still was devoid of _threat_ , something that set Damian on edge further than he wanted to admit. Silence stretched out between them, the depth of it aching, pulsing, until Bruce's hand slid along Damian's back, fingertips curling around his son's waist, pulling him to his side. "Tell me... is the one you care so much about safe? Her and the child?"

Damian shivered, the combination of the _knowledge_ that the statement issued along with the caress of his father's fingertips along his side left him completely unable to stop the reaction. His hand came to rest over Bruce's own, his eyelids sliding closed as he let the sensation of _being cared about_ wash over him. His breath hitched and he offered the truth on the matter he was being questioned about, "I do not know."

"Will you find out?"

"Yes." Damian shifted closer to his father's side, something familiar igniting inside of him as he leaned ever so lightly on him. "I will find them."

They lapsed into silence and Damian allowed it to be what it was. There was an implication in the air, but nothing he'd said or been questioned on would give him away, would place him here after such meticulous detail to ensure they weren't found out. He'd even ensured it had been their one off night so that his lack of presence gave nothing away. They had been as careful as they could possibly have been and he stored the singular hope away that it had been enough.

The wind shifted and the scent of blooming flowers ghosted across his senses. His fingers weaved between Bruce's against his side, clasped and held as he watched the remaining police force weave through the crime scene below. 

Some things would never change - the way his heart beat too quickly in his father's presence, the way he yearned for more no matter how much he was given - but he was equally as certain that some things _would_. He'd found love, companionship where he'd denied it for so long, admitted things he once wouldn't have with Colin. He'd stood by Jason's side and felt the power of allowing someone else to take away his control. He'd found hope and dreams in the darkest parts of the night, Dick's breath ghosting over his skin, time and again. 

He understood what _family_ meant, saw how things could be if only he gave some small part of himself to each of these people in his life. Somewhere within that understanding had been a single line in an email, something he couldn't bring himself to do face-to-face just yet, but knew he _needed_ to do. One line to sum up all he'd ever done to Tim and how deeply he now regretted it.

_You never deserved the things I have done to you._

It wasn't _an apology_ , not as far as the typical pieces of saying he was sorry went. But it was, somehow, deeper than that. It was a truth he could never take back, a piece of himself offered as a white flag on the battlefield of their relationship with one another. It was _hope_.

Shifting, Damian rested his cheek against Bruce's armor, gazed across the matte black of the expanse of _Batman's_ chest and out over a somehow cleaner version of Gotham. Right then, right there, he had everything he could have dared dream and _that_ was the balm to every old wound, the placation to every single demon in his arsenal. 

_And it felt like freedom._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So here we are, at the end of the line for this particular story!
> 
> I'm almost certain I won't be able to give it up completely and that I may revisit it a few times in the future, adding little oneshots to it. Either way, I'm glad I took this adventure and I'm pleased everyone was here with me for it!


End file.
